Browsing by Subject "Social network"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Cervical cancer screening behavior of Hmong women: a social network analysis
    (2012-09) Shweta, Shweta
    This study examined the relationship between health and cervical cancer networks of Hmong American women and their cervical cancer screening practices. Incidence of cervical cancer and cervical cancer mortality rates are high for Hmong American women (Mills, Yang & Riordan, 2005; Ross, Xie, Kiffmeyer, Bushhouse & Robinson, 2003). Cervical cancer mortality rates for Hmong American women are three times higher than Asian American and Pacific Islander women and four times higher than non-Hispanic White women (Yang, Mills & Riordan, 2005). Despite high cancer related mortality rates, the utilization of cervical cancer screening is low (Yang, Mills & Dodge, 2006). Regular screening is important as it helps to detect cancer early when the treatment is most effective (Tanne, 2012). Barriers to cancer screening in the Hmong community include a lack of education, low income, cultural beliefs, language, traditional health practices, and mistrust of the Western health system (Lee & Vang, 2010). Hmong people value social cohesion and community living and often consult community members for making health related decisions (Barrett et. al., 1998). Using network analysis and logistic regression, this study explored the relationship between specific characteristics of the cervical cancer network and cervical cancer screening practices of Hmong American women. The health networks of study participants included all friends, family, health care providers, or co-workers with whom they had discussed their health in the last one year. Likewise, cervical cancer networks included everyone with whom the study participants had discussed cervical cancer in the last one year. Analysis found that Hmong American women who had a cervical cancer network were more likely to be aware of pap tests, receive pap tests and be aware of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines than Hmong American women who did not have a cervical cancer network. Having a cervical cancer network was not significantly associated with receiving HPV vaccines or Hmong American woman's perceived need for cancer screening. When controlled for demographic variables, a cervical cancer network was not found to be a significant predictor of cancer screening practices. With regard to characteristics of members within the cervical cancer network, education was found to be significantly associated with the awareness of HPV vaccines. Analysis also found that income, number of years in the United States and ability to speak English were significant predictors of Hmong American women having a cervical cancer network. Further, income, education, and having a regular health care provider were also significantly associated with cervical cancer screening practices of Hmong American women. It is important that practitioners and policy makers use social networks as a resource to improve the utilization of screening services. Programs for encouraging screening should target clients and their networks. For developing culturally appropriate screening programs, policy makers should consult local leaders. Programs developed in consultation with community may be efficacious in convincing Hmong American women to utilize services regularly (Lee & Vang, 2010).
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    Linguistic, cognitive, and social constraints on lexical entrenchment.
    (2011-08) Chesley, Paula
    How do new words become established in a speech community? This dissertation documents linguistic, cognitive, and social factors that are hypothesized to affect lexical entrenchment, the extent to which a new word becomes part of the lexicon of a speech community. First, in a longitudinal corpus study, I find that linguistic properties such as the range of a word's meaning and the donor language of a borrowing affect lexical entrenchment. Contextual factors such as frequency, dispersion, and a borrowing's cultural context also play a role in lexical entrenchment. Second, a psycholinguistic study examines the extent to which speakers remember previously unseen words. Through eye-tracking, lexical decision, and free recall tasks, I determine that, again, linguistic and contextual information plays a role in the memorability of a new word. Speakers are more likely to remember words used in particular contexts, and they are also more likely to remember certain word types than others. In a third study, I find that musical preferences, knowledge of popular culture, and social ties influence comprehension of African-American English vocabulary. Together, these studies suggest that lexical entrenchment is predictable to an extent previously undocumented. Results indicate that information relating to dynamical, non-linear systems could be profitable in further studies on lexical entrenchment.
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    Mixed methods analysis of multicultural identity and psychological help seeking beliefs in college students.
    (2012-06) Walter, Jeffrey Paul
    Research on the psychological help-seeking beliefs and behaviors of college students has provided evidence for differences among students based on demographic factors, with different variables being salient for different cultural groups. This mixed methods study focuses on understanding how common psychological help-seeking variables, including the role of one's social network, predict help-seeking beliefs, while triangulating these results with students' responses to questions about psychological help-seeking. Two hundred sixty-nine students from an urban, nonresidential, state university in the Midwest participated in the study, completing a questionnaire comprised of 2 scales, several demographic questions, and a variety of open-ended questions about seeking psychological help. Cultural dimensions of sociorace, gender and social class were combined to examine students' beliefs about psychological services by multicultural identity. Differences were found between groups when contrasting students who had previously sought help and those who had not previously sought help and also when contrasting European American and Racial/Ethnic Minority students. These differences were understood in light of qualitative responses which emphasized both the importance of being familiar with what psychological services have to offer and the confidence that psychological services could be helpful to someone from a similar cultural background. Suggestions for psychological professionals are discussed.
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    Mixed Methods analysis of multicultural identity and psychological help seeking beliefs in college students.
    (2012-03) Walter, Jeffrey P.
    Research on the psychological help-seeking beliefs and behaviors of college students has provided evidence for differences among students based on demographic factors, with different variables being salient for different cultural groups. This mixed methods study focuses on understanding how common psychological help-seeking variables, including the role of one's social network, predict help-seeking beliefs, while triangulating these results with students' responses to questions about psychological help-seeking. Two hundred sixty-nine students from an urban, nonresidential, state university in the Midwest participated in the study, completing a questionnaire comprised of 2 scales, several demographic questions, and a variety of open-ended questions about seeking psychological help. Cultural dimensions of sociorace, gender and social class were combined to examine students' beliefs about psychological services by multicultural identity. Differences were found between groups when contrasting students who had previously sought help and those who had not previously sought help and also when contrasting European American and Racial/Ethnic Minority students. These differences were understood in light of qualitative responses which emphasized both the importance of being familiar with what psychological services have to offer and the confidence that psychological services could be helpful to someone from a similar cultural background. Suggestions for psychological professionals are discussed.
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    Newcomer socialization: the roles of social networks
    (2014-07) Choi, Yongjun
    As newcomers transition into new organizational settings, organizational insiders serve as important information and social support resources to help newcomers adapt to their new work environments. In this study, I develop and test a model showing how newcomers develop their communication networks over time, and revealing how this dynamic aspect of the newcomer socialization process may facilitate newcomer adjustment and success in the workplace. I conduct a three-wave longitudinal study within the first 28 weeks of employment and find that institutionalized socialization tactics, task interdependence, and proactive personality partially help newcomers form their communication networks. Second, I find that newcomers' communication networks facilitate newcomer adjustment but only at time 2 (week 16) and time 3 (week 28). Third, findings only marginally support the proposition that newcomers' communication networks mediate the relationships between proactive personality and task mastery. However, newcomers' communication networks did not mediate the relationships between other two socialization factors - institutionalized socialization tactics and task interdependence - and newcomer adjustment. Fourth, findings generally support the proposition that newcomer adjustment predicts intrinsic career success. The post hoc analysis indicates that newcomer adjustment mediates the relationships between socialization factors and career success. Last, findings fail to support the proposition that socialization factors explain how quickly newcomers develop their communication networks. However, the preliminary results show that communication networks develop during the very early entry period.
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    Parameter estimation in social network models.
    (2011-05) Okabayashi, Saisuke
    A social network is an example of a phenomenon with complex stochastic dependence that is commonly modeled with a class of exponential families called exponential random graph models (ERGM). Maximum likelihood estimators (MLE) for such exponential families can be difficult to estimate when the likelihood is difficult to compute. Most methodologies rely on iterated estimates and are sensitive to the starting value, failing to converge if started too far from the solution. Even more problematic is that the MLE may not exist, a situation that occurs with positive probability for ERGMs. In such a case, the MLE is actually "at infinity" in some direction of the parameter space. Here we present a simple line search algorithm to find the MLE of a regular exponential family when the MLE exists and is unique. The algorithm can be started from any initial value and avoids trial-and-error experimentation. When the MLE does not exist, our algorithm adapts Geyer's (2009a) approach to detect non-existent MLEs and construct one-sided confidence intervals for how close the parameter is to infinity.