INQUIRY

New York University • College of Arts and Science
relationship compared to the low construal level condition.
Study 2 investigated whether manipulating couples
to have a high versus low level construal when discussing
a topic of disagreement would lead couples to use more
constructive conflict strategies and make greater progress
toward conflict resolution in a conversation setting. This
line of work stands to inform the development of clinical
interventions to enable couples to better regulate conflict
to maintain and improve their relationships.
The Importance of Neighborhoods’ Physical Characteristics
in Shaping Childhood BMI
Doris Chiu, Sociology
Sponsor: Professor Ruth Horowitz, Sociology
To better address the growing problem of obesity,
researchers need to further explore how the built environment
affects weight status. This project examines the
contours of neighborhoods and the type of effect these
characteristics have on childhood obesity. This research
uses the 2011 National Survey of Children’s Health, a
nationally representative survey. The two primary characteristics
of interest are physical amenities and physical
disorder of the neighborhood. Physical amenities are
measured by the presence or absence of sidewalks, parks
and/or community centers, while physical disorder is measured
by the presence or absence of litter, vandalism and/
or dilapidated housing. While not all components of the
two characteristics prove significant in protecting against
obesity, understanding how neighborhoods interact with
the health of residents is integral to building and developing
future, healthy neighborhoods.
Economic Voting and Cross-Strait Relations
Antony Chu, Economics, Politics
Sponsor: Professor Oeindrila Dube, Politics
Since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949,
Taiwan and China have been at a standstill. The Three
Links was a 1979 proposal from China to open up postal,
transportation and trade links across the Taiwan Strait with
the goal of facilitating unification or at least forestalling
Taiwan’s drift toward formal independence. As Cross-
Strait relations have begun liberalizing in recent years, how
have these policy changes been received by the Taiwanese
constituency? Through a difference-in-differences analysis,
this study explores the effects of opening cross-Strait
transportation and trade links on Taiwan’s national and
regional elections. Following the policy changes, this study
finds a differential increase in the mayoral vote share of
pro-China parties in regions most visited by tourists and
in regions where exporting industries to China are most
concentrated. National elections, however, do not observe
a statistically significant effect. These findings not only
provide a novel empirical study on the development of
Cross-Strait relations but also suggest that while economic
benefits have been in Taiwan as a result of the Three
Links, voting patterns have not changed on the national
level. The success of the policy in facilitating unification
is thus dubious.
What Brings You in Today? An Anthropological Look
at the Standardized Patient
Natalie Cohen, Anthropology and Linguistics
Sponsor: Professor Bambi Schieffelin, Anthropology
Standardized Patient (SP) encounters are staged interactions
between medical students and a person, often an
actor, whose job it is to role-play the part of the patient.
These encounters are used in a variety of settings to teach
and/or evaluate medical students and are constantly being
assessed and remodeled. The vast majority of the current
research on standardized patients has focused on SPs as
a resource; that is, it has focused on the SP as a tool and
evaluated programs based on accuracy, reliability, consistency
and cost. By equating SP encounters with actor
performances, there has been little motivation to focus on
the impact of the cognitive demands of this role enactment
or its lasting physical and mental effects. Drawing on
ethnographic research among SPs and SP program staff,
this paper develops a more holistic, qualitative analysis
of SP work. Specifically, this paper focuses on the person
role-playing by analyzing the unique aspects of SP work
including the need to balance role-play improvisation with
standardization, a lack of pay and benefits coupled with
the prospect of being hurt on the job and the pressure to
perform highly emotional roles to a high standard repeatedly
over time. As the use of SPs is going to remain an
integral part of medical education, the perspective of the
SP is vital to highlighting what issues need to be addressed
in order to ensure the health and safety of those who are
educating future healthcare workers.
The Concept of Safety among Domestic Violence
Survivors
Veronica Cruz, Psychology
Sponsor: Professor Alisha Ali, Applied Psychology,
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human
Development
Although it has been shown that several aspects of
safety may be determining factors in the likelihood of a
survivor of domestic violence returning to their abuser,
the concept of safety has never been thoroughly studied
within domestic violence survivors. The long-term goal
for this project is to create a scale that accurately measures
the construct of safety. This phase of the project sought to
determine how level of safety correlates with aspects of
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