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  Depression, Religiosity, and Parenting Styles among Mormon Adolescents

  Courtney Kinneard and Mark Ogletree

  We examined how religiosity and the parent-child relationship are associated with depression in 12-14 yr old teenagers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. A random sample of 493 revealed three correlations: girls who have a strong connection with their mother have a negative correlation with depression; daily spiritual experiences are negatively correlated with depression, and negative religious coping is positively correlated with depression symptoms.

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  Looking for Truth: Dissecting Tales of Fijian Cannibals

  Brandon Olsen, Sarah Jamarillo, and May Harrington

  After Europeans encountered Fiji in the eighteenth century, the islands quickly gained fame for having cannibal tribes. Captain James Cook, an early explorer of the Pacific islands, describes the Fijian natives as an “addicted people, eating their enemies, whom they kill in the battle”(Banivanua-Mar 26). The people had a culture of war rituals, rivalry, and conflict between tribes that inspired cannibalistic rumors. Those that visited Fiji spread wild tales that the westerners eagerly devoured. Under analysis, these stories lack compelling evidence to claim the Europeans and Americans met Fijian cannibals and instead tell more about the society the tales come from.

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  Second Generation Immigrants: Their Self-Esteem and Educational Aspirations

  Anika Price

  Immigrants experience unique stresses & discrimination, which leads to lower levels of self-esteem. (Stets & Burke, 2003; Kao, 1999; Gee et al., 2010). Do Second-Generation Immigrants experience the same thing? If so, will that affect their educational expectations for the future?

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  Town Hall Drama: What's all the Gossip About?

  McKay Randall

  When the new Congress took their seats at the beginning of 2017, Republicans were on a mission to replace Obamacare. To gear up for the legislative struggle, legislators took to the streets and towns of their districts to speak to constituents about Obamacare and other policies. During the first town halls in January and February, Republican legislators found themselves confronted with rowdy and raucous crowds who nearly shouted them down every time they had chance to speak. The News took note of this phenomena in late February and started reporting on the story. The popular headlines from The Washington Post, New York Times, and CNN all reported that Republicans were facing wild crowds in their home states. These same media outlets then discovered that Republicans were cancelling their town halls, presumably so they didn’t have to face the tough crowds. This issue gained a lot of media attention. I aim to test whether a pattern did develop where legislators, especially Republicans, backed down from town halls after the reports of bad crowds.

  Hypothesis: Republicans did do fewer town halls after the news coverage, but this trend will not be specific to the GOP and is due to other factors.

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  Consequences of Transgender Victimization

  Zach Reid

  This study reviewed 13 empirical and recent studies dealing with transgender victimization. It details the arc narrative of where bullying begins and what the result is. The study revealed transgender youth and young adults are at higher risk for being bullied which puts them into a statistically more likely category to experience physical harm, sexual harm, and long lasting mental health problems.

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  Git R Done: Analysis of Motivation in Relation to Exercise and Determining Factors

  Britton L. Rice

  Exercise provides many physical, emotional and mental health benefits (Facts about Physical Activity, 2014). Despite this, only 21% of American adults exercise regularly. One way of increasing this is to encourage better understanding of motivation and how to control it. Since intrinsic motivation towards exercise is not easily created or changed, most of the focus is placed on extrinsic motivation in its varying degrees. This summary isolates a few factors in exercise that play crucial roles in deciding motivation such as:

  • Climate and Goal Orientation

  • Influence of peers and teammates

  • Influence of coaches

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  Policy Reforms Amidst Corruption: Ukrainian Attitudes Toward Economic Development

  Eliza Riley

  This research examines what economic policies Ukrainians think should—and could– work in Ukraine to reform the economic system and combat widespread corruption. This study tests how region specific determinants and corruption perception levels influence attitudes toward democracy and optimism toward future reform possibilities in Ukraine.

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  Does Ideology Trump Party Loyalty

  Soren J. Schmidt

  Party affiliation and political ideology are typically paired together. It’s consequently difficult to disentangle their individual impact on vote choice. Utah’s 2016 election presented a rare exception to this trend with non-conservative Republican nominee (Donald Trump) and conservative independent candidate (Evan McMullin). Do voters prioritize party loyalty or personal ideology when casting a ballot? What are other predictors of party defection?

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  Literature Review of Animal Hoarding

  Corina L. Schroeder

  This paper reviews the characteristic features, origin, and treatment of animal hoarding. It evaluates the similarities and differences of hoarding disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, showing that it seems to be more closely related to object hoarding. This disorder often originates with a traumatic life event, which triggers a psychological vulnerability to compulsively collect animals. In some cases, the hoarder was neglected by parental figures at a young age, so he or she developed relationships with animals to cope. Other theories for the origin include addiction models, delusional disorders, and dementia models. Several theories are reviewed to explain the characteristic lack of insight in animal hoarding, including viewing the animals as self-objects, extensions of themselves, or dissociation. This paper also reviews ineffective methods of dealing with animal hoarders and the lack of treatment for animal hoarding, as well as implications and recommended solutions.

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  Exercise After Retirement: The Secret to Productive Aging

  Taradita Subiantoro, Erin Kaseda, Tyler C. Graff, Kristina Hall, Maren Wright Voss, Jerry Bounsanga, Lori L. Wadsworth, Man Hung, and Wendy C. Birmingham

  In this study, we interviewed and surveyed participants and attendees of the Huntsman Senior World Games in order to determine factors associated with successful aging post retirement on older adults who are highly active compared to average older adults in physical and psychological well-being.

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  Response Time Scores on a Reflexive Attention Task Predict a Child's Inattention Score from a Parent Report

  Erica Suh, Katherine Christensen, Sarah Kamhout, Kahala Thompson, Yoojin Kim, and Cooper Hodges

  ● Children with attention deficits have problems with sustained and reflexive attention tasks

  ● Few studies measure reflexive attention as a component of day-to-day attention in children

  ● Parents also have valuable insight into children’s behavior

  ● We want to identify associations between computer-based reflexive attention task performance and parent-rated attention-related problems.

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  The Effects of Extracurricular Activity and Physical Activity on Academic Success: A Literature Review

  Braden Tanner

  Due to an ever-increasing importance of education, it is important to understand how to foster an environment conducive to academic success. Extracurricular activity is one of many factors that influences the academic environment. This review examines literature published since 2010 concerning extracurricular activity's effect on academic success. Seeing that sports make up such a large portion of the extracurricular spectrum, the review also examines studies analyzing the effects of physical activity on academic performance.

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  Let's Play a Game: A Game Theoretical Analysis of Conservative Voting in the 2016 Presidential Election in Utah

  Devon Tenney

  This study is intended to look at strategic voting behavior among conservatives in the state of Utah in the 2016 Presidential Election. This particular election is important and quite unique in that a third party, conservative candidate competed with the Republican candidate for victory in the state. With a viable third-party candidate to consider, conservative voters had a much more complex choice to make than they usually do in an election. We will model this choice and its outcomes to explain why the vote came out the way it did.

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  Speaking of Gender, Generally: Analysis of Gendered References and Speaking Opportunities in LDS General Conferences

  Devon Tenney

  This study seeks to examine the changing role of women in LDS General Conferences. Through text analysis and an exploration of speaking opportunities at General Conference, we find that women have been discussed more frequently and provided more opportunities to speak over time.

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  Identifying Novel Cognitive Therapy Targets: Expression of nAChR mRNA in Rat Hippocampal Interneurons

  Spencer Thompson, Maxwell Wright, Taylor Grant, Brady Vance, Nicholas Ahern, Jeffrey Ogden, Romaine Drecketts, David Pugh, Zach Fisher, Sara Werner, Jaron Fowlers, Bradley Klienstuber, Richard Burgon, Ashley Sego, Doris Jackson, and Sterling N. Sudweeks

  We quantified mRNA subunit expression in the CA1 rat hippocampus. The a3 and B2 nAChR subunits are the highest expressed mRNA subunits while the a4 is the least. Current nAChR targeted cognitive therapies focus on the a4B2 and a7 nAChRs. These results provide a new avenue in cognitive therapies by targeting a3 containing nAChRs.

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  Time For A Change: Continuous and Discontinuous Transformation in Highly Religious Families

  Ashley Tuft

  While change is a natural occurrence in marital and family relationships, there is an inadequate amount of literature that discusses how this “spontaneous” change occurs within families independent of professional intervention (Fincham, Stanley, & Beach, 2007). Religion is one instrument through which these changes are facilitated in families. We use life course, as explained in Elder (1994), as the theoretical framework for understanding religiously related transformation, focusing especially on the principles of timing, transitions, and turning points. While some research has used life course to understand religion, most of it does not discuss family-level change (Petts, 2009, 2014). The purpose of this study is to contribute to the literature on transformation at the intersection of religion and family life by focusing on the timing at which these changes occur.

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  The Benefits of Culturally Adapted Mental Health Treatments: A Meta-Analysis

  Juan Valladares, Madeleine Coenen, Niyeli Herrera, and Yoojin Kim

  Cultural values, ideas, beliefs and word views may affect the way a mental intervention is received and therefore how effective it is. Historically, research has not focused on cultural minorities and these groups tend to have poorer success rates in treatments (Gonzalez et al., 2010). The purpose of this meta-analysis is to establish the aggregate effect of those mental health interventions that have been adapted to clients' cultural or ethnic backgrounds.

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  Comparison of Lifestyles Between Married and Unmarried Emerging Adults

  Braden Wake, Jessica Hadfield, Makenzie Lewis, and Toree Hafen

  Emerging adulthood contains many lifestyle changes such as leaving the comfort of home, working full time, and for some, getting married (Arnett, 2012). To unmarried emerging adults, marriage seems to be an important factor in the changing dynamics of friendship. Married friends seem to no longer attend social gatherings or participate in the same activities they once did. The question that this research team set out to answer is whether or not these observations actually exist or if they are imagined. This study examined areas of lifestyle, such as sociality, financial trends, personal priorities, stress, and religion for unmarried and married emerging adults. By comparing the various aspects of lifestyle in unmarried and married emerging adults, it is possible to see whether or not differences actually exist.

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  "Accounting" for Last Names: The Effect of Surname Initial on Success in Academia

  Natalie Wolford and Mason Snow

  - Academic journals typically follow conventions of ordering authors by surname initial in both the title page as well as the bibliography section.

  - Einav and Yariv (2006) find significant effects from the alphabetical placement of an Economics professor’s last name on their likelihood of gaining tenure.

  - While the majority of accounting journals follow alphabetical conventions, some order the authors strictly on reported contribution.

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  Expectations and Memory: Positive and Negative Expectations of Memorizing the Armenian Alphabet

  Micah Wood and Madeline Hoyt

  Studies suggest that expectations may have an effect on various cognitive functions, including memory. To this point, no studies have exclusively investigated the effect of expectations on short-term memory. This study tested the effect of positive and negative expectations on short-term memory, utilizing the Armenian alphabet as a test of memory. N=45 undergraduate students (23 men, 22 women), ranging in age from 18-26 years were divided equally into three groups: Group 1 was a control group, Group 2 was manipulated to have positive expectations before testing, and Group 3 was manipulated to have negative expectations before testing. All groups were given three minutes to study 18 Armenian letters and their English-letter counterparts. Participants were then given two minutes to write the correct English letter next to each Armenian equivalent. A single-factor ANOVA comparing averages between groups showed non-significant results (p= .15).

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  Do all Blacks & African Americans Have the Same Outcome?

  Amelia F. Belchior

  Do blacks and African Americans have the same outcome in terms of self-esteem, GPA, and SEC? Those who are aware of black history and understand the civil rights movement have higher self-esteem. Those blacks who accept their skin color and apply the self-fulling prophesy of what black is know to be, they have higher self-esteem as well. Black immigrants are more likely to accept their skin color and not associate blackness with living in the ghetto, being good at playing sports and dancing; they are more likely to have have self-esteem than native born African-Americans.

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  The Perception of Children in Chile: Burden or Joy?

  Christine W. Black and Renata Forste

  Globally, family values and behaviors have been shifting. This can be seen through a decrease in the universality of marriage, increased individualism, higher prevalence of divorce, older age at marriage and low birthrates with an increase in planned and controlled fertility. In Latin America, and specifically in Chile, these types of changes have been the most drastic. Data come from the ISSP where about 1,500 Chilean participants were asked a series of questions regarding family and gender attitudes as well as multiple demographic questions. This study looked at how these attitudes contributed to the perceived burden or joy of children. Results found that individuals who have sufficient resources and value the homemaker role see children as life’s greatest joy.

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  "Do You Kiss Your Mother With That Mouth?": Profanity in Popular PG-13 Movies

  Jason Eldredge, Stephen M. Trotter, Kirt Haynie, and Melissa Littlefield

  Exposure to profanity in the media is a concern shared by many. Profanity is often portrayed as humorous and/or innocent. A content analysis of popular PG-13 movies from the 1990s to the present shows the use of profanity is regularly portrayed as having no consequence. The overall amount of profanity in PG-13 movies has decreased since the 1990s.

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  Women's Autonomy and Hypertension

  Benjamin J. Fife

  Based on a nationally representative sample of women in the Dominican Republic, I examine how the amount of autonomy predicts the development of hypertension. Using logistic regression techniques for a sample of 4,869 women, I find that in the presence of demographic controls autonomy does not significantly predict the diagnosis of hypertension. In the case of women in the Dominican Republic, older age, higher weight, lower wealth, urban living and distance to a healthcare facility are better predictors of hypertension.

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  The Effects of Anti-Trafficking Ads on Support for Anti-Trafficking

  Marcos Gallo

  A significant gap exists in the literature on the effectiveness of advertising on increasing support for anti-trafficking policies and community involvement in anti-trafficking organizations. Addressing this current gap, I developed and ran an experiment with approximately 1000 individuals in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a site of high concentration for anti-trafficking NGOs. I investigated the effects of advertisements that use religion, cultural values and national identity. Initial findings indicate that these ads do not affect policy support but bear a positive effect on individuals’ personal involvement with anti-trafficking organizations. Further results suggest that using pro-sociality as a strategy is more effective than using negative rhetoric, adding more insight to this debate in the social marketing literature.