A doctoral degree is the ultimate culmination of hard work and dedication. From countless hours attending seminars and conducting research, to TA'ing courses and preparing a dissertation, our PhD students have shown grit and determination from the outset. For many, these integral parts of the PhD journey have been completed online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the pandemic may have impacted the way research and courses were conducted, it cannot take away from the monumental accomplishment of completing a doctoral degree.
If there is a defining feature of doctoral research across the Faculty of Arts, it is social impact — where the human being is at the centre of the inquiry. Our 2022 cohort’s dissertations make this clear: whether it's focused on health and well-being, economies and prosperity, governance and policy, accountability, equity, or cultural expression, their scholarship makes meaningful contributions that can benefit people and societies. Their work is a testament to the knowledge they have contributed and the change they will enact. The Faculty of Arts is honoured and proud to have supported them along the way.
Congratulations to our newest PhDs!
Liz Attisano
Department:
Psychology
Thesis:
Investigating
Children's
Naturalistic
Explorations
in
a
Living
History
Museum
Exploring the learning opportunities in a living history village at the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum (WRM) and the contents of parents and children's conversations.
Keely Cronin
Department:
English
Thesis:
Broadcasting
a
Performance
of
Caring:
Social
Justice
and
Migrant
Narratives
on
the
CBC's
Canada
Reads
Arguing that migrant narratives are used to facilitate a Canadian performance of caring on the popular broadcast television and radio program Canada Reads.
Jessica Roberts
Department:
Psychology
Thesis:
Does
Caring
for
Yourself
Lead
to
Seeking
Care
From
Others?
Investigating
the
Relationship
Between
Self-Compassion
and
Interpersonal
Emotion
Regulation
Assessing the possibility that highly self-compassionate individuals may only seek others’ support when their level of distress is relatively high and exceeds their capacity to self-soothe.
Martyn Gabel
Department:
Psychology
Thesis:
Exploring
Associations
Between
Response
Inhibition
and
Emotion:
Effects
of
Valence
Motivation
Information
Processing
Style
and
Emotional
Reactivity
Explaining that response inhibition will be bolstered by approach motivation (e.g., anger, curiosity) but hindered by avoidance motivated experiences (e.g., anxiety).
Sara Gallagher
Department:
English
Thesis:
Black
Frontiers:
Race,
Region,
and
Myth
in
African
American
Westerns,
1854-1954
Analyzing a diverse set of stories to show the ways African American authors and producers of Western texts have participated in the revision of the Western genre in a full range of imaginative forms.
Brandon Goulding
Department:
Psychology
Thesis:
Beyond
Causality:
Heuristics
for
Inferring
Possibility
Exploring two strategies that children may use for inferring the possibility of improbable events: thinking about the causal circumstances that could enable an event, and using a memory-based heurisic that compares potential events to known events.
Min Jeong Hong
Department:
Accounting
Thesis:
Fair
Value
Accounting
and
Informational
Efficiency:
A
Look
at
the
Confirmatory
Role
of
Financial
Reports
Studying the confirmatory role of financial reports by examining how fair value accounting affects two aspects of informational efficiency: the credibility of voluntary disclosures and the timeliness of price discovery.
Dorian Lane
Department:
Accounting
Thesis:
Incomplete
Incentives,
Task
Temporality,
and
Effort
Spillover
in
a
Multitask
Environment
Examining how incentive type, task temporality, and performance feedback influence effort spillover onto a second, unincentivized task.
Chanel Jade Larche
Department:
Psychology
Thesis:
Escaping
the
Woes
Through
Flow
Investigating the relation between flow (a state of deep and effortless concentration) and the development of problematic gaming with smartphone games.
Shane Littrell
Department:
Psychology
Thesis:
The
Psychology
of
Bullshitting:
Measurement,
Correlates,
and
Outcomes
of
the
Propensity
to
Mislead
Others
Presenting research on the associations of bullshitting with frequency to other relative constructs, and the extent to which those who produce bullshit are also receptive to other types of bullshit.
Allison Mascella
Department:
Economics
Thesis:
The
Time-Use
of
Canadian
Immigrant
Families:
Differences
in
Time
Inputs
on
Child
Raising
Analyzing the time-use of foreign-born parents and their children as measured by their daily time-use records to learn whether their cultural background and their integration into Canadian society affects time-use allocation decisions.
Andrew Moore
Department:
History
Thesis:
Manorial
Regulation
and
Negotiation
in
a
Late
Medieval
Environment:
Land
and
Community
at
Herstmonceux,
1308-1440
Examining the role that environment played in the negotiation of rights and responsibilities on a fundamental socioeconomic institution of rural communities in late medieval England.
Kathryn Ann Morrison
Department:
Philosophy
Thesis:
Mature
Minors
Eligibility
for
Medical
Assistance
in
Dying
(MAiD):
An
Ethical
Analysis
Exploring the prospect of extending MAiD eligibility to mature minors and arguing that eligibility should be calibrated according to maturity rather than age.
Zehua Pan
Department:
Economics
Thesis:
A
Theoretical
and
Empirical
Investigation
Into
the
Economic
Relationship
Between
Forested
Watersheds
and
Water
Treatment
Costs
Arguing that surrounding forest cover has a significant negative effect on water rates and incidence rates in Ontario while also highlighting that surrounding forest cover significantly reduces water treatment costs across Canada.
Karen Pinto
Department:
Accounting
Thesis:
The
Valuation
of
Economic
Earnings
and
Income
Shifting
of
U.S.
Multinationals
in
Domestic
and
Foreign
Jurisdictions
Developing the concept of economic earnings, measuring economic and shifted earnings, testing their market valuation, and testing differences in valuation across investor types.
Sam Schirm
Department:
German
&
Slavic
Studies
Thesis:
L2
Discourse
Markers
and
the
Development
of
Interactional
Competence
During
Study
Abroad
Investigating how speakers of a second language develop the ability to interact in the second language, and how they develop their interactional competence.
Jamie Sewell
Department:
Philosophy
Thesis:
From
the
Standpoint
of
The
Reasonable
Person:
Epistemic
Ignorance
Culpable
Dispositions
and
the
Objective
Standard
Arguing that adding tools in epistemologies of ignorance helps address the difficulty in identifying when actions are borne of indifference to others' interests by offering ways of thinking about the underlying dispositions toward the important interests of others.
Madison Stange
Department:
Psychology
Thesis:
Examining
the
Influence
of
Scratch
Card
Structural
Characteristics
on
Psychophysiology
Motivation
and
Gambling
Behaviour
Adding to our existing knowledge of scratch card gambling and emphasizing the impact that structural features have on gamblers' experiences.
Qi Tang
Department:
Accounting
Thesis:
KPI
Information
Acquisition
by
Analysts:
Evidence
From
Conference
Calls
Investigating analysts’ demand for KPI-related information in earnings conference calls and whether managers adjust their decisions about voluntary KPI disclosure in subsequent earnings calls.
Christin Taylor
Department:
English
Thesis:
'Sorry
if
my
Words
Aren't
Right':
Writing
Studies'
Partnership
With
Second
Language
Writing
to
Support
Translingual
Students
in
the
Anglo-Canadian
Classroom
Advocating that translinguism be adapted, rather than adopted, to fit writing studies in Canada.
Kiruthiha Vimalakanthan
Department:
Psychology
Thesis:
Compassion
Over
Competition:
The
Momentary
and
Longitudinal
Benefits
of
Adopting
a
Caregiving
Mentality
in
the
Face
of
Appearance
Comparisons
Investigating the potential in harnessing the caregiving mentality to buffer the negative consequences of appearance comparisons on women’s body image, and psychological and social well-being.
Cameron Winter
Department:
History
Thesis:
Three
Years
and
two
Continents
Apart:
A
Comparative
Study
of
the
Great
Sioux
War
and
Anglo-Zulu
War
Comparing the battles of the Little Bighorn and Isandlwana and arguing that it was the similarities in American and British perceptions of their Indigenous foes that led to the defeats and difficulties that the campaigns encountered.
John Yoon
Department:
English
Thesis:
Stories
in
Play:
Narrative
Formation
in
Sports
and
Esports
Proposing a model for analyzing the narrative formation in sports broadcasts by tracking the live narrativization to the formulation of a final narrative.