Scholarship & Research
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Item Fear in the 21st Century: U.S. cultural anxiety and the psychology of stress(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2022) Ready, Tyler James; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert BennettIn the 21st century, narratives circulating throughout a variety of societal landscapes emphasize the danger the country's populace faces. This creates an overall stressful environment, with the result often manifesting itself in bigotry that seems to resist facts. For instance, the racism undergirding President Trump's Muslim ban continues to persist, despite an availability of information indicating Muslims aren't any sort of meaningful threat. This dissertation examines how underexamined fear narratives affect cultural discussions like the War on Terror, social media, gun violence, and the January 6th riot in Washington DC. In analyzing texts across politics, entertainment, journalism, and academic scholarship, I illustrate how fear operates in both explicit and subtle ways. As I argue, this results in a variety of cultural discussions where people opt for the 'comfort' of well-cultivated fear tropes instead of engaging with complicated societal concerns. Myriad fear narratives (of which I analyze just four) work together to ensure people are always reminded of the danger they're in. The collective fear, as a chronic source of stress, then lessens the likelihood of any one fear association disappearing. This means that trying to address prejudice of varying types, as humanists frequently do, is a losing proposition and explains why people often seem to ignore facts. In drawing upon psychology and neurology, I further the fields of American studies and affect theory in explaining how an understanding of human physiology helps explain these contentious arenas. I argue we need a theory of fear that builds upon established scientific research and presents a roadmap for addressing both individual fear discourses, and how they function together in the aggregate.Item Beyond the binary: understanding the 'essence' of attitudes toward people who are non-binary(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2018) Bruun, Megan Perry; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Keith A. HutchisonPsychological essentialism is the belief that some entities have deep, unchangeable properties that determine its goals, personality, and function (Prentice & Miller, 2007). Unfortunately, in some cases, the belief that something has an unchangeable 'essence' is also tied to prejudice. The current study examined how essentialism relates to attitudes towards non-binary people, who are not easily categorized by their gender. To do this, we collected survey data from 305 undergraduate students and Mechanical Turk participants. The study validated modified measures of attitudes and behavioral intentions toward people who are gender non-binary. Next, we examined the relationships between essentialism and the different forms of expression of non-binary gender prejudice and support. Results showed greater levels of essentialism were associated with greater levels of negative intentions and attitudes toward gender non-binary people and lower levels of positive intentions and attitudes. We also conducted a latent profile analysis, identifying and organizing people into profile groups based on their attitudes and behavioral intentions toward gender non-binary people. Results demonstrated 3 meaningful profile groups; participants clustered as advocates (positive attitudes and positive intentions), ambivalent (both positive and negative attitudes and intentions), or antagonists (negative attitudes and negative intentions). The participant's political ideology, gender, and data collection forum were significant predictors of profile group membership; and group membership was a significant predictor of level of essentialism. These findings help to lay the ground work for theory building and application research on gender non-binary prejudice.Item Prejudice and traits of victimization among the Crow Indians : an experiment in behavior modification(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1972) Parks, Helen Margaret Bybee