Territoriality is seen across different species of animals anywhere, from birds, fish, and mammals to reptiles. Although many animals use several types of signals to defend their territories, signals in different sensory modalities have varying properties that may influence their effectiveness in different contexts. This study investigates whether male plateau fence lizards (Sceloporus tristichus) use chemical or visual behavior during territory defense. Both visual and chemical communication modalities inform the audience about the producer’s physiological condition. The results show no obvious tradeoff between visual and chemical modalities in the behavior recorded in the presence of another male lizard compared to when undisturbed, suggesting that these signals are not used in territory defense. An increased visual head bob display is the most common spiny lizard territory defense response to conspecific intruders. However, this is not always the case, as environmental and evolutionary constraints influence communication. This species does not perform typical territorial behavior. However, there was a significant increase in aggressive visual displays, called full shows, in the presence of the intruding live stimulus. An increase in full shows could be a less conspicuous way to defend their territory instead of performing an entire broadcasting head bob display while perched in an open/exposed habitat notably filled with predatory birds. This shows modification within one communication modality to result in more effective communication.

This dissertation research project developed as an urgent response to physical inactivity, which has resulted in increased rates of obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disease worldwide. Incorporating enough daily physical activity (PA) is challenging for most people. This research aims to modulate the brain's reward systems to increase motivation for PA and, thus, slow the rapid increase in sedentary lifestyles. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) involves brain neuromodulation by facilitating or inhibiting spontaneous neural activity. tDCS applied to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) increases dopamine release in the striatum, an area of the brain involved in the reward–motivation pathways. I propose that a repeated intervention, consisting of tDCS applied to the DLPFC followed by a short walking exercise stimulus, enhances motivation for PA and daily PA levels in healthy adults. Results showed that using tDCS followed by short-duration walking exercise may enhance daily PA levels in low-physically active participants but may not have similar effects on those with higher levels of daily PA. Moreover, there was a significant effect on increasing intrinsic motivation for PA in males, but there were no sex-related differences in PA. These effects were not observed during a 2-week follow-up period of the study after the intervention was discontinued. Further research is needed to confirm and continue exploring the effects of tDCS on motivation for PA in larger cohorts of sedentary populations. This novel research will lead to a cascade of new evidence-based technological applications that increase PA by employing approaches rooted in biology.

Military service can have a profound impact on families, particularly in relation to parental mental health. These factors can make the parent’s ability to provide stability and emotional support to other family members, especially children, extremely difficult. While the parent plays an important role in a child's life, teachers also play a critical role in understanding and supporting children’s behavior and performance in school. There seems to be a notable lack of studies exploring their perceptions of military student behaviors. Military families often experience unique challenges due to moving frequently, parental deployments, and the potential impact of military life on children’s emotional well-being (Briggs et al., 2019). Understanding how teachers perceive and respond to these specific challenges is crucial in providing appropriate support to military students. By exploring teacher perceptions, researchers could gain insights into how military life influences classroom dynamics, academic performance, and social interactions. The current study aims to investigate what child, parent, family, and deployment-related factors are associated with teachers’ perceptions of externalizing and internalizing behaviors in military-connected children.

The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether different types of narcissistic behavior are associated with different kinds of economic risk behavior. The thesis examines five published articles to establish whether the sub-classifications of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are significantly linked to economic risk behavior, broadly defined. The primary hypothesis states that different classifications of narcissistic behavior will be associated with different kinds of economic risk behavior. The paper finds, broadly, that different kinds of narcissistic behavior classifications are indeed associated with different kinds of economic risk behavior. Specifically, grandiose narcissism (GN) is associated with higher rates of risky gambling behavior; however, manifestations of vulnerable narcissism (VN) appear to play an integral role in the relationship. The paper also finds that both GN and VN are associated with higher rates of oniomania where mediating roles of impulsivity, materialism, and emptiness are present. The thesis concludes that addressing the issue of narcissism cannot be viewed through the lens of any unilateral perspective.

Understanding how and why animals choose what to eat is one of the fundamental goals of nutritional and behavioral biology. This question can be scaled to animals that live in social groups, including eusocial insects. One of the factors that plays an important role in foraging decisions is the prevalence of specific nutrients and their relative balance. This dissertation explores the role of relative nutrient content in the food selection decisions of a species that is eusocial and also agricultural, the desert leafcutter ant Acromyrmex versicolor. A dietary choice assay, in which the relative amount of protein and carbohydrates in the available diets was varied, demonstrated that A. versicolor colonies regulate relative collection of protein and carbohydrates. Tracking the foraging behavior of individual workers revelaed that foragers vary in their relative collection of experimental diets and in their foraging frequency, but that there is no relationship between these key factors of foraging behavior. The high proportion of carbohydrates preferred by lab colonies suggests that they forage to nutritionally support the fungus rather than brood and workers. To test this, the relative amounts of 1) fungus, and 2) brood (larvae) was manipulated and foraging response was measured. Changing the amount of brood had no effect on foraging. Although decreasing the size of fungus gardens did not change relative P:C collection, it produced significant increases in caloric intake, supporting the assertion that the fungus is the main driver of colony nutrient regulation. The nutritional content of naturally harvested forage material collected from field colonies was measured, as was recruitment to experimental diets with varying relative macronutrient content. Field results confirmed a strong colony preference for high carbohydrate diets. They also indicated that this species may, at times, be limited in its ability to collect sufficiently high levels of carbohydrates to meet optimal intake. This dissertation provides important insights about fundamental aspects of leafcutter ant biology and extends our understanding of the role of relative nutrient content in foraging decisions to systems that span multiple trophic levels.

For my graduate thesis, I present an annotated bibliography that evaluates and summarizes a list of resources available for use in future research. The resources focus on how pectus excavatum, a congenital birth anomaly affecting the thoracic wall, may impact identity formation and subsequent behavior during a period characterized by significant physical and psychological development, from the ages 12 to 18, known as adolescence. I examine resources that specifically look at congenital birth anomalies, pectus excavatum, developmental psychology, psychoanalysis, and identity crises. The following provides background and an annotated bibliography to establish whether there is a causal relationship between individuals born with congenital birth anomalies, specifically pectus excavatum (PE), and the impact it has to identity development during adolescence. This work is important to me because I was born with pectus excavatum, and I believe a causal relationship does exist. While I claim the causal relationship does exist, I should note this is conjecture and anecdotally based on 7 years of interacting with patients in both a clinical and personal setting. The conversations are reflective of discussions that have taken place about having been born with pectus excavatum and how the condition has impacted our lives.

Implementation of a Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS) has proven to be a ‘big hairy audacious goal’ within the literature and applied settings. Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) has utilized a similar framework and was represented under the MTSS umbrella. If implemented with fidelity, both MTSS and PBIS have been shown to have positive outcomes for learners, staff members, and school systems. To implement one component of PBIS, a coaching procedure which consisted of instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback was provided for three middle school teachers. Two Tier 1 PBIS classroom management practices were the focus of the coaching intervention—opportunities to respond and encouragement of appropriate behavior through positive points of contact. This study utilized a mixed methods approach which incorporated a single-subject design, specifically a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants, to assess the effects of the coaching intervention on the implementation of the two classroom management practices, student on-task behavior, and the social validity of the intervention. Findings indicated an increase in both practices as well as an increase in student on-task behavior, from baseline to intervention phases of the study. Additionally, all participants reported high levels of social validity of the coaching intervention. The discussion was focused on triangulation of the quantitative and qualitative data, which indicated these findings were complementary. Connections of the findings to the research literature, implications for future practice and research, limitations, and conclusions have been provided.

Social insects collectively exploit food sources by recruiting nestmates, creating positive feedback that steers foraging effort to the best locations. The nature of this positive feedback varies among species, with implications for collective foraging. The mass recruitment trails of many ants are nonlinear, meaning that small increases in recruitment effort yield disproportionately large increases in recruitment success. The waggle dance of honeybees, in contrast, is believed to be linear, meaning that success increases proportionately to effort. However, the implications of this presumed linearityhave never been tested. One such implication is the prediction that linear recruiters will equally exploit two identical food sources, in contrast to nonlinear recruiters, who randomly choose only one of them. I tested this prediction in colonies of honeybees that were isolated in flight cages and presented with two identical sucrose feeders. The results from 15 trials were consistent with linearity, with many cases of equal exploitation of the feeders. In addition, I tested the prediction that linear recruiters can reallocate their forager distribution when unequal feeders are swapped in position. Results from 15 trials were consistent with linearity, with many cases of clear choice for a stronger food source, followed by a subsequent switch with reallocation of foragers to the new location of the stronger food source. These findings show evidence of a linear pattern of nestmate recruitment, with implications for how colonies effectively distribute their foragers across available resources.

This study explores aggression among siblings. Specifically, this study tests whether different types of aggression among siblings occur more or less frequently than toward friends and acquaintances. This study also examines whether sex differences in aggression between siblings resemble sex differences in aggression among friends and acquaintances. Results suggest that direct aggression occurs much more frequently among siblings than among friends and acquaintances, but that indirect aggression occurs far less frequently among siblings than among friends and acquaintances. In addition, the findings suggest that certain sex differences in aggression, such as males directly aggressing more often than females, are diminished when the aggression occurs between siblings. Both males and females report high levels of direct aggression toward their siblings.