The Honors College

Since the financial crisis of 2008, insurance regulation has been one of the most discussed topics in financial news publications. Many politicians are of the opinion that the current regulatory environment of the insurance industry is insufficient in protecting consumers and needs to be changed. Others believe the current state regulatory system is sufficient and are opposed to regulatory changes.

Over my past four years at Appalachian State University I have noticed the lack of women in upper-level business classes. I recall a statistics class I had in my sophomore year. Out of 50 people, only two were female; we sat on the second row as comrades.

From a young age I have always been told, "you can be anything you want to be," and told that I have a knack for mathematics, but I look around and see that being a woman in business is still a lonely road.

Click the link below to see Heather Wiles' Online Content of her thesis:

http://sites.google.com/site/thesisactivities/

The casino game "blackjack" is heralded as the game with the least house-versus player edge. In other words, novices to the game, more often than not, will lose less money playing blackjack than any other game in the casino. Some claim that in blackjack, the player actually has an edge for success over the house. This means that on average, the player will win more money than he or she pays into the game.

The information technology (IT) industry is well suited to the demographics and location of western North Carolina. IT extends to include hardware and software manufacturing, as well as servicing. Western North Carolina presently houses notable businesses in software creation and servicing, and is prevalent in hardware assembly. (Duke University Department of Sociology, 2007) Semiconductors already have a foothold in North Carolina; however, no company dealing with semiconductor technology is currently located near Catawba County.

Recent research indicates that levels of narcissism have been steadily increasing for the past 25 years (Twenge, Konrath, Foster, Campbell, & Bushman, 2008). American college students are now approaching a level of narcissism that rivals that of celebrities (Bergman, Westerman, & Daly, 2010). Though seemingly insignificant, the rising levels of narcissism in American youth may have a long-term effect on the quality of the next generation of business and political leaders.

This thesis aims to examine gender differences in the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3(ASI-3). Anxiety sensitivity (AS) refers to the fear of anxiety and related sensations arising from beliefs that these sensations are associated with negative physical, psychological, and social outcomes. The Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI) has traditionally been the most commonly used measure of AS. However, researchers have noted that the ASI contains too few items to reliably assess the various facets of AS.

This project assessed current attitudes toward wind energy in western North Carolina by conducting two surveys. The first was a telephone survey of residents of western North Carolina and the second a mailed survey to Watauga County residents where currently the only commercial scale wind turbine in the state exists. The research that was conducted takes place in the midst of indecision for whether large wind turbines will be allowed in the mountains from a wind permitting bill passing through the state legislature.

Globalization has connected different human groups around the world in an unprecedented way. The study of culture seems particularly relevant to this global context, since different cultural behaviors, worldviews, and values inform the interactions of diverse human groups. How different cultures come to form and maintain a sense of identity is the topic of this investigation. Cultural identity formation is discussed in four chapters.

Two studies examined gender differences in regret for both a hypothetical and real life situation. Because males were not told to explicitly imagine how they would feel in the situations, we hypothesized that they should be less attentive to the action/inaction of their responses and consequently report less of an action/inaction effect compared to females. We hypothesized that females should imagine how they would feel in the situations and therefore, should have a stronger action/inaction effect.