Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-102).

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of South Florida, 2007. / Title from PDF of title page. Document formatted into pages; contains 30 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

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Nearly one third of all Americans believe religion to be the most important part of their life. Nearly two thirds of Americans believe religion to be an important part of their life. The majority of Americans (94%) claim to have a belief in a supreme deity or God. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between spirituality and religion and selected risk taking behaviors in college underclassmen. Presently in the published literature, there are no studies that examined the relationship between levels of spirituality and religion and their interaction with select risk-taking behaviors, while delineating these variables to the college underclassmen. The risk-taking behaviors that were of interest to the researcher in this study were episodic and heavy drinking and sexual behaviors. This research effort employed a non-experimental, descriptive study design. The study population consisted of college underclassmen enrolled in an introductory wellness course in a teaching-intensive institution in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Results indicated a significant interaction between religion and all of the sexual risk behaviors under analysis. Results also indicated a significant interaction between spirituality and three of the four sexual risk behaviors under analysis. A significant interaction was found between frequency of church attendance and all of the sexual risk behaviors under analysis. Finally, when cross tabulated with all measures of spirituality and religion, risk behaviors related to alcohol usage reported statistically insignificant on all data indices. / Ph. D.

Farmers in the high plateau region of Algeria are assumed to exhibit risk averse behavior, particularly, due to highly variable weather conditions inducing income instability over time. This in turn directly affects their production behavior. The Eastern High Plateau (Setif) is not a homogeneous region. In the El-Eulma daira, for example, three different agroecological zones have been identified on the basis of climate, topography and soil quality. In addition, two distinct agricultural sectors (private and socialist) coexist side by side in each of the agroecological zones. This study constitutes an attempt to measure farmers' risk attitudes in three communes (El-Eulma, Oum Ladjoul and Beni Fouda) which are representative of the three agroecological zones of the El-Eulma daira. Farmers' risk attitudes were measured through the experimental approach developed by Binswanger in India. The technique used consisted of presenting the subjects, i.e. the farmers, with a set of alternative prospects involving real money. Based on the derived risk aversion coefficients, a series of tests was run to determine if farmers' risk attitudes are dependent on the zone and/or the sector. The effect of socioeconomic characteristics (age, schooling, number of working children, etc.) on partial risk aversion was analyzed. Finally, the derived risk aversion coefficients were used in a risk programming model (MOTAD) to determine optimal farming plans for private as well as socialist sector farmers. The experiment results indicate that regardless of the zone and the sector, farmers unanimously exhibit risk averse attitudes. At low payoff level, the distribution of risk preferences is more spread. A narrower distribution occurs at higher payoff levels (e.g. 200 DA scale). There was no evidence of significant difference among sites and between sectors. Also socioeconomic attributes correlate poorly with the estimated partial risk aversion coefficients. In the socialist sector major discrepancies between the risk programming model solutions and actual activity levels occured. They were expected because of the specific structure of this sector. The inclusion of government cropping pattern recommendations in the constraint matrix indicates that government interventions have a different effect on socialist farmers' welfare of the three zones. / Graduation date: 1986

Risk has become a key concept in social theory and has had a significant impact across academic disciplines including criminology. On the one hand, several criminologists argue that the rise of risk has fundamentally reconfigured the operations of courts, corrections, and policing. Many claim that, over the last few decades, crime control has moved away from the old rehabilitative and retributive approaches of the past and towards more actuarial approaches based on risk management – crime has become a risk to be managed in aggregate terms rather than a moral transgression in need of rectification. On the other hand, while risk-based approaches to governing crime have grown significantly, cultural criminologists and sociologists of sport have noted a heightened emphasis on risk-taking by urban graffiti writers, illegal street racers, extreme sports enthusiasts, and illicit drug users. For these people, the risk-averse logic of actuarial governance – risk as potential harm to be avoided – is inverted such that risk is positively embraced for the excitement it affords. What is particularly characteristic about the present, then, is that a politics of risk management is colliding with a culture of risk-taking. In attempts to make sense of this puzzling paradox, in this thesis I offer a primarily theoretical investigation of the dominant approaches used in the study of risk management (chp. I) and risk taking (chp. II & III) in sociology and criminology. After exploring how the rise of risk has reconfigured crime control over the last quarter century in Chapter one, in Chapter two I develop the argument that orthodox criminology provides two dominant images of criminal risk-taking. While dispositional theories explain criminal risk-taking as the pathological behaviour of individuals with particular body types, low-self control, or of lower-class origin, situational theories conceive of criminal risk-taking as the (ir)rational decisions of necessarily risk-averse actors. Despite differences between dispositional and situational theories, both leave no room for risk-taking that is controlled and intentional. In Chapter three I enlist the work of Jack Katz on the seductions of crime and of Stephen Lyng on the sociology of risk-taking to develop a third, cultural approach to risk-taking that is voluntary and cross-class. I illustrate how, for Katz’s and Lyng’s actors, risk is approached as a challenge rather than seen as a deterrent. Lastly, I add to the historicity of the cultural approach to risk-taking by tracing its roots in a romantic worldview that arose out of 19th century disenchantment with the bureaucratic rationalism and alienation of capitalist modernity. In conclusion, I summarize the main argument of the thesis and outline some potential avenues for future research.