The current research investigates how authentic and hubristic pride influence licensing effects in the context of indulgent behaviors. Previous research examining the influence of pride on consumption behavior has generally found that pride leads to both indulgence and self-control. The current research suggests that the reason for the conflict within the previous research stems from the fact that pride is not a unitary construct. Rather, the two distinct types of pride - hubristic and authentic - have different consequences on indulgence. Consistent with prior literature, the results from the first two studies suggest that authentic pride leads to more licensing in indulgence than hubristic pride. We further demonstrate how cognitive resources moderate the effect of pride on indulgence. By manipulating pride in different ways, using different measures of indulgent choice, and different manipulations of cognitive resources, the last three studies confirm that authentic pride leads to more indulgence than hubristic pride, especially when cognitive resources are available. However, when cognitive resources are limited, hubristic pride leads to more indulgence than authentic pride. This research contributes to our basic understanding of the dynamics of pride on licensing effects.

When the Taiwanese composer, Tai-Hsiang Li received the National Cultural Award in 2013, he said, “My blood is full of music. If you take out the music from my life, I am nothing!” Tai-Hsiang Li brought contemporary music to Taiwan, combining folk music with the modern orchestra, and raising the quality of Taiwanese popular music. He almost single-handedly infused Taiwanese culture into classical, modern, popular, film, and television advertising music. His arrangements of folk music have shown the Taiwanese the beauty of their own music and inspired countless younger musicians. The music critic Chung-Heng Yang declared, “Without Tai-Hsiang Li, the music history of Taiwan will not be complete.” After the composer’s death in 2014, his life story was made public by various media, but many of the information disseminated were not accurate. Musicians have difficulties performing his works because of his constant revisions to his scores. For this thesis, I have personally interviewed the composer’s family and the Hakka singer Yu-Wei Hsieh. I investigated documents, collected Hakka mountain songs and three different editions of his Hakka-style suite Mountain and Farmland. I also investigated journal articles, newspaper articles, and read the books about the composer. In addition to presenting an updated biography of Tai-Hsiang Li’s life, I also prepare a critical performance edition of the Mountain and Farmland. It is my desire that more musicians will find interest in performing Mountain and Farmland as well as scholars doing research on Hakka music and works by Tai-Hsiang Li.

Family Dinner examines the social construction of the Asian American family in the most hyper dysfunctional way. The characters in the play do not necessarily have to be played by an Asian American but the family holds Asian American values and ideals. Therefore, through a different cultural lens, the hope is to effectively blend the cultural values that are physically and culturally familiar no matter what the race of a family it may be. This creates a point of entry for audience members of difference cultural and social background to simultaneously view the play with a familiar point of view. The objective is then to critique the absurdity in the social cultural values and to redefine the meaning of the All-American family. Lastly, what needs to be acknowledged is that the play, in its current draft and form, is a play that is still in process. The process of rewriting is significant to the writer because it is in this act of rewriting where the writer learns to hone his or her own technique in the art of playwriting.

In February 2012, less than two weeks before presidential elections in Russia, a two-minute video of young women in brightly colored masks and short dresses was uploaded to YouTube. The video featured four members of the Pussy Riot punk feminist band performing a wild dance in front of the altar of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Lip-syncing to a song, which they called a punk prayer, they beseeched the Virgin Mary to "drive" Vladimir Putin, then the prime minister and a presidential candidate, "away." The performance was followed by the quick arrest of three of the band members and a trial in a criminal court that sentenced them to two years in a penal colony on charges of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and transformed the case into a symbol of the infringement of freedom of expression in Putin's Russia. This research explores the legal and discursive strategies for marginalizing political dissent and discusses the implications of the case for shrinking the arena of legitimate public debate in contemporary Russia. As revealed by a critical discourse analysis of a report by psychological and linguistic experts that formed the basis of the prosecutor's case, it employed a range of discursive devices that normalized conformity and depoliticized the band's critique. Whereas those discursive devices portrayed Pussy Riot's religiously contextualized speech as socially unacceptable, the analysis of the court's decision revealed the mechanism that made it illegal. An analysis of the rationale used by the court to justify the criminal conviction of Pussy Riot showed clear prosecutorial bias. The post-case amendments that were introduced into Russia's Criminal Code and Code of Administrative Violations toughened up the punitive measures in articles associated with insulting religious feelings of citizens and contributed to further authorizing limitations on political speech on religious and moral grounds. As demonstrated by an analysis of the media coverage of the Pussy Riot affair, the Russian press did little to delegitimize this power abuse. The state-run newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta took a clear stance in support of the prosecution. The mainstream newspaper, Izvestia, although not demonstrating a consistent prosecutorial bias, did not provide any sensible alternatives to the government's framing of the affair. Neither did the liberal-oppositional outlet Gazeta.ru. It failed to provide a comprehensive, substantial, and contextualized coverage of Pussy Riot's activism and portrayed them not as agents of change, but as victims of the vigilant, all-powerful state. By doing so, it did not take advantage of the public resonance of the case to elevate a discussion about the feasibility of dissent in an increasingly authoritarian context and thus potentially contributed to undermining the value of political protest. The treatment of the Pussy Riot affair by the Russian state contributed to further infringements of freedom of expression, strengthened the interpenetration of church and state and illuminated the legal system's role as a tool for conserving the status quo of power relations in contemporary Russia.

Silica sand is used in the hydraulic fracturing process as a proppant—a material that holds open fissures in a rock formation to allow oil and gas to escape. Due to the increased demand for proppant sand, numerous sand mining and processing facilities have been constructed in the vicinity of small communities. Silica sand contains crystalline silica, which can cause chronic health problems such as silicosis. This study monitored airborne particulate matter at residences within 800 m from the facilities property line, with active mining, processing, and/or transport. Real-time particulate air monitoring with automated acquisition of explanatory variables: sound and motion to detect transportation; and wind speed and direction to attribute measured PM concentrations to specific sources. The highest daily mean concentrations were 37.3 μg/m3 for PM10 and 14.5 μg/m3 for PM2.5, both of which are well below the EPA National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Using conditional probability plots of PM relative to wind direction elevated short-term (20 second) peak concentrations were more likely to occur when the wind was blowing from the sand facility. These peak concentrations occurred infrequently, ranging from 0% to 3% of the sampling time. This study did not measure crystalline silica specifically, but low PM concentrations were observed so crystalline silica is expected to be low. Since PM concentrations were low near the facilities, it can be concluded that these facilities do not increase airborne particulate matter to hazardous concentrations that could cause chronic health conditions.

This dissertation performs close readings of a body of well-known East Asian films. The Japanese films discussed include Kitano Takeshi's Hana-bi (1997) and Fukasaku Kinji's Battle Royale (2000). From Korea, the dissertation focuses on Peppermint Candy (1999, Lee Chang-dong), The Coast Guard (2002, Kim Ki-duk), The Chaser (2008, Na Hong-jin), and four films by Park Chan-wook: Joint Security Area (1999), Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003), and Lady Vengeance (2005). Through an analysis of these films, this dissertation argues that the narrative cinema of South Korea and Japan, produced between 1997 and 2008, uses the representation of violence to foreground and critique the ideology of capitalism. Both South Korea and Japan see substantial economic growth, collapse, and rebuilding in the twentieth century. From 1986 to 1991, Japan experienced an asset price bubble, but its collapse in 1991 led to the period known as Japan's “Lost Decade” which marked the end of the nation's post-war economic miracle. A comparable trajectory occurs in South Korea. Following significant development in the 80s and 90s, the Asian Financial Crisis brings South Korea to a halt in 1997. In what came to be locally known as the “IMF Crisis,” South Korea had to rely on a $21 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund. Just as Japan's economic collapse almost immediately preceded Korea's, both countries attempt to work through the trauma of the Lost Decade and the IMF Crisis in their national cinemas. Mirroring what audiences in East Asia were experiencing, the characters in these films endure instances of violent displacement. In response to their disenfranchisement, the protagonists of films such as Hana-bi and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance brutally lash out. But unlike in the majority of narrative cinema, the characters' violent actions do not lead to resolution. Instead, violence only creates a recursive loop where systemic inequity persists. As a result, the brutal cinema of Korea and Japan pushes the representation of violence to its limit point and reveals the tacit goal-oriented logic where it is repeatedly used as a justified means to legitimate ends. By illustrating and problematizing this idea, these films uncover how this ideology of violence is a central tenet to the larger structure that actually produced the source of alienation: neoliberal capitalism. This dissertation thus demonstrates two points. First is the way in which economic trauma in Japan resonates in Korea, a process that carries over into their respective cinemas. Second is how these films assert that the representation of violence does not merely concern issues of film and media, but rather shares a deeper connection with the dominant ideology within globalization. As the films demonstrate, capitalism ultimately benefits the capitalist, a dynamic that can only occur at the expense of the laborer. These films thus articulate the inherent violence in this worldview that disregards the wellbeing of the Other. At the same time, the films also contend that it is that single-minded impetus towards profit that fueled the economic collapse, an almost inevitable result of the region's furious adaptation of industrial capitalism in a process referred to as ‘compressed modernity.’ Less interested in the enormous prosperity resulting from modernization in the region, the films confront and lament the often neglected but equally exorbitant costs. The violent cinema of South Korea and Japan thus insists that the financial crises of the late twentieth century, the persistence of economic inequality, the cinematic representation of violence, as well as the growth of its own industries, constitute a knot that can only be understood in its totality.

Older age is a primary risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease in part through the stiffening of the large cardiothoracic elastic arteries (e.g., aorta, carotid arteries). Aging is also associated with reduced cognitive function, cerebrovascular reactivity and brain white matter integrity, but whether these changes in brain structure and function are associated with age-related large artery stiffness remains unclear. In contrast, older adults who have high aerobic fitness demonstrate attenuated large artery stiffness and better cognitive performance compared to their sedentary counterparts, but the effects of aerobic fitness on white matter integrity and cerebrovascular reactivity with aging are conflicting and limited. Moreover, whether high aerobic fitness-associated lower large artery stiffness in older adults is associated with, and perhaps mediates, the beneficial changes in cognitive function and white matter structure remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which high aerobic fitness is associated with preserved white matter structure, cerebrovascular reactivity, and cognitive performance in aged individuals, and if these changes in brain structure and function are associated with attenuated large artery stiffness. In young (n=19, 23.6 ± 2.5 years) and old (n=22, 64.4 ± 4.2 years) healthy adults, large elastic artery stiffness was measured by carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV, aortic stiffness) via non-invasive applanation tonometry of carotid and femoral pulse waveforms and carotid artery beta-stiffness index (β-stiffness index) and compliance using high-resolution ultrasound and carotid blood pressure via applanation tonometry. Aerobic fitness was measured as maximal exercise oxygen uptake (VO2max) using respiratory gas analysis on an upright cycle ergometer. Older subjects were stratified as high or low fit based on gender and age VO2max classification. Letter, pattern and N-Back cognitive tests were used to assess processing speed and working memory respectively. Fractional anisotropy (FA) from diffusion tensor images and Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) imaging was used to assess cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) response to a breath hold and brain activation during a working memory task. The association between large artery stiffness and FA was then assessed using a voxel-wise general linear model approach and a region-of-interest analysis. Our results confirmed age-related increases in cfPWV, carotid β-stiffness index and central (carotid) but not brachial systolic blood pressure, and expected reductions in carotid compliance, VO2max, working memory and processing speed, and in white matter integrity in select brain regions (bilateral cingulate, frontal, occipital, temporal). In contrast, we found no age-associated differences in CVR to breath hold stimulus or change in BOLD response to the N-Back. In our cohort of health adults, we found that the age-related changes in large artery stiffness were not attenuated by high compared with low VO2max. Among older adults, large elastic artery stiffness was not associated with regional white matter integrity or cerebrovascular reactivity in any regions-of-interest. Greater carotid artery compliance and lower β-stiffness index was associated with higher processing speed, while compliance was related to higher d'Prime scores and lower reaction time on the 2-Back task among the older adults. CVR to a breath hold stimulus was not related to any measure of cognitive performance. VO2max was not associated with any measures of vascular function, brain structure, function or cognition, indicating relations between large artery stiffness and cognition were independent of aerobic fitness capacity. Taken together, these data suggest that select measures of cognitive performance, but not white matter structure or CVR, may be susceptible to age-related changes in carotid stiffness/compliance and that are unaffected by aerobic fitness. More work is needed to understand the mechanisms by which age-related declines in carotid artery compliance and increased carotid stiffness are associated with reductions in cognitive function in older adults.

Can words create worlds? My fiction thesis, El mundo es mentira (The World Is a Lie), explores different voices and points of view to examine the ways in which they not only tell stories, but also generate spaces, atmospheres and, ultimately, worlds of their own. Moreover, the book aims to be a meeting ground where these voices dialogue with the voices of the literary tradition, reinterpreting and rewriting it. This collection was conceived as an experimental laboratory as well: it is comprised by short and micro-stories which question and challenge conventional forms of storytelling by incorporating poetic, memoiristic and essayistic devices.

Theory of Mind (ToM), a social cognitive skill defined as one's ability to attribute mental states to self and others, is considered key for a successful navigation of one's social world. Extensive research has elucidated the early developmental trajectory, predictors, correlates, and outcomes of ToM in the first five years of a child's life. By contrast, although ToM continues to develop beyond age five, and children increasingly begin to function in more complex and interconnected social ecologies, very little is known about ToM in middle childhood. The present study examines ToM development in middle childhood, using a new measure that is age appropriate, innovative, and embedded in the flow of a naturalistic social interaction. Drawing from rich behavioral and report data collected from children, parents, and teachers in a longitudinal study from toddlerhood to middle childhood, interpersonal factors (the child's relationships with the mother, father, and peers), and intrapersonal factors (temperament characteristic of effortful control) are systematically examined to predict individual differences in children's performance in the new ToM measure at age 10. Associations between children's ToM and their broadly ranging, concurrently assessed clinical symptoms are also examined. As a preliminary venture, using a small sample of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and their caregivers, the present study also seeks to establish preliminary criterion validity for the new measure of ToM.

High anxiety is associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD), in particular, atherosclerotic coronary artery disease. However, the mechanisms by which anxiety contributes to the development of CVD are unclear. Unlike other common psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety and its effects on CVD risk has not been studied extensively. Moreover, whether elevated anxiety is associated with arterial stiffness and vascular endothelial dysfunction, biomarkers of CVD risk, in healthy adults and whether a psychological intervention designed to lower anxiety levels in healthy adults with moderate to high baseline anxiety levels ameliorates vascular dysfunction remains unclear. The purpose of this study was twofold; first to determine the extent to which moderate to high anxiety levels are associated with vascular dysfunction including aortic stiffness as measured by carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cf-PWV), carotid artery stiffness via ultrasound-based β-stiffness index, and forearm resistance artery function measured as peak forearm blood flow using venous occlusion plethysmograph (VOP). Secondly, to determine whether the empirically validated Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) anxiety intervention improved vascular function after 12 weeks and if this was associated with reductions in anxiety in adults with moderate to high baseline anxiety levels. Our results indicated that there was no association between increased anxiety levels and any of the three vascular outcomes of interest. Conversely, there was an association between the ACT intervention participation and improvement in forearm resistance artery function independent of age, sex, education, race/ethnicity, BMI and STAI Trait anxiety. Taken together, these data suggest that although higher State and Trait anxiety was not associated with aortic stiffness, carotid stiffness or forearm resistance artery function, and the ACT intervention was associated with improved peripheral resistance artery function. Additional studies are needed to determine whether this effect occurs earlier than 12 weeks and sustained longer that 12 weeks, and whether it occurs in adults with CVD risk factors (i.e. atherosclerosis), non-white racial/ethnic backgrounds and in resistance vessel function in response to intra-arterial vasoactive agonists such as acetylcholine.