Thesis (M.A.)--Missouri State University, 2009. / "May 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-80). Also available online.

Thesis (M.P.A. )--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2005. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2932. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as 2 preliminary leaves (iii-iv). Includes bibliographical references ( leaves 91-93 ).

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Psychology, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-56).

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation (Ph. D.)--University of Toledo, 2006. / Typescript. "Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for The Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 198-213).

Thesis (D.W.S.)--Institute for Worship Studies, 2007. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 177-185).

Despite its immense personal significance, procreation is an inherently other-regarding endeavor. By its very nature, the decision to procreate is the decision to bring into existence another morally considerable being, one who will be exposed to the full range of harms, benefits, and risks that accompany a typical human life, and one who cannot by its nature ever consent to being born. Moreover, when this decision is undertaken in a community of persons, it is also a decision to affect the lives of others in a host of profound (if often underappreciated) ways, from its effects on population size and environmental sustainability, to its consequences for a community's distribution of resources. In many cases, of course, these interests coincide: adults need children for their parenting projects, societies need citizens for the maintenance of their institutions, and children themselves are often happy to have been brought into existence. However, as a burgeoning literature is beginning to demonstrate, the various interests that are implicated by procreative decision-making can also come into conflict as well, and in ways that raise basic questions of justice. This thesis explores five of these questions, and in so doing, seeks to contribute to our understanding of the normative significance of procreation. Chapter One considers the relationship between procreation and child welfare, asking what role (if any) prospective children's interests play in limiting the scope of the right to procreate. Chapters Two and Three consider the relationship between procreation and parenthood, asking whether the act of creating a child generates special rights and/or obligations to parent that child. Chapter Four considers how the significant costs of procreation and parenting ought to be distributed through society, asking whether parents are responsible for paying the full cost of their childrearing projects, or whether childrearing costs should be shared in some way among parents and non-parents alike. Finally, Chapter Five considers our moral obligations to orphaned children, asking whether it is permissible to create new children in conditions where there are already existing children in need of parental care. While numerous positions are defended on each of these interrelated questions, one general conclusion runs through all of them: rather than being viewed as something that is immune from moral scrutiny, or as something that individuals have an unqualified right to do, procreation ought to be viewed as the site of potentially conflicting interests that must be carefully balanced against one another.

Intergenerational family conflict is an important experience to study in Hindu Asian Indian families, given the process of acculturation that occurs for immigrant families as well as how Hindu religious beliefs influence duties towards the family (dharma). The current study was designed to understand the various factors that influence intergenerational family conflict including acculturation and religious values in Hindu Asian Indian families. This study is a qualitative group (family) interview investigation conducted in order to identify sources of intergenerational family conflict, understand the retention of cultural values within a family given the process of acculturation, understand if and how Hinduism (religious values) plays a role in intergenerational family conflict and family cohesiveness given acculturation, and find strategies families use to overcome identified sources of intergenerational family conflict. A grounded theory approach was used to study the different families (cases). Separate results for parents and siblings are presented and overall findings are discussed. A theory about understanding conflict for the Hindu Asian Indian family is presented.

Cette thèse s'intéresse à l'ampleur et aux déterminants de la mobilité socio-économique intergénérationnelle. Nous nous intéressons d'abord à la transmission des revenus de pères en fils en Allemagne, en traitant soigneusement la question des biais d'estimation. Cependant, cette approche ne tient pas compte de tous les facteurs du milieu socio-économique d'un individu affectant sa réussite future. Nous considérons ensuite des corrélations au sein de fratries, comme indicateur plus large de toutes les influences familiales, d'abord en France, pour l'éducation, la profession et les revenus. Nous réalisons également une étude comparative des corrélations de revenus entre frères en France et en Suède, afin d'évaluer l'impact sur l'estimation de l'absence d'information sur les revenus permanents et de l'utilisation alternative de mesures prédites. Enfin, nous abordons la question des mécanismes sous-jacents à la transmission des inégalités. Nous explorons ainsi la possibilité d'utiliser les événements de mai 1968 en France comme expérience naturelle pour identifier et mesurer le lien causal entre éducation des parents et des enfants. / This thesis investigates the extent and determinants of the intergenerational socioeconomic mobility. We first investigate the earnings transmission from fathers to sons in Germany, carefully addressing the question of biases in the estimation. However, this approach fails at taking account of all factors from the socioeconomic background of an individual affecting future success in life. We then consider sibling correlations as a broader indicator of all family influences, first in France, for education, profession and earnings. We also conduct a comparative study of the brother earnings correlation in France and Sweden to assess the impact on the estimation of the lack of information about permanent earnings and the use of predicted measures instead. Finally, we address the question of the mechanisms underlying the transmission of inequality. We thus explore the possibility to use the events of May 1968 in France as a natural experiment to identify and measure the causal link between parental and children's education.

Environmental issues such as climate change and habitat loss pose significant challenges to existing political, legal and financial institutions. As these challenges have become clearer in recent years, interest in understanding the psychological, cultural and moral motivators of environmental stewardship has grown. Recent research within the social sciences--particularly psychology, sociology and communications--has revealed numerous intra- and interpersonal processes and mechanisms that shape whether, how and to what extent individuals and communities engage with the environmental problems they face. In this dissertation, I integrate research from these and other fields to examine the role that affect, identity and morality play in driving individual-level concern about and response to environmental challenges. Across three chapters (which present results from eight empirical studies), I attempt to answer a series of core research questions, including: (1) What is the role of affect in motivating active engagement with environmental issues? (2) What factors shape recognition of problems such as climate change as morally relevant? (3) What can we learn by studying the interaction of affect and morality in the context of environmental conservation? (4) What are the limits of the affective and moral judgment systems in motivating environmental concern and action? In Chapter II (`Is climate change an ethical issue?'), I show that relatively few people identify climate change as a moral issue, that such perceptions are shaped in part by individuals' beliefs about the causes of the problem, and that perceived moral obligation predicts behavioral intentions. In Chapter III (`Who cares about the future?'), I further examine the affective roots of environmental moral beliefs and demonstrate that feelings of gratitude towards past generations enhance individuals' perceptions of responsibility towards future generations. Finally, in Chapter IV (`Are pandas like people?'), I find limits to the role of affect in motivating beneficent action on behalf of non-human others. Together, these three chapters provide novel and actionable insights into some of the factors that shape individual-level environmental stewardship. This dissertation includes both previously published sole-authored (Chapter II) and unpublished co-authored (Chapter IV) material.