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  It's No Accident: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Vehicle Safety Inspections

  Alex Hoagland and Trevor Woolley

  Traffic fatalities have fallen steadily over the past two decades, particularly those due to car failure. Many have attributed this fall to safer vehicle technology. This trend has led many states to reevaluate mandatory vehicle safety inspection programs. This study sought to answer the question, does the elimination of vehicle safety inspections have an effect on traffic fatalities?

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  Social Anxiety Disorder in College Students and its Differing Treatments

  Taylor Hubbert

  • Approximately one in six College Students report having anxiety or being treated for anxiety
  • Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is defined as anxiety that is caused by social experiences, and an individuals fear/ phobia of social situations
  • Research available to us on Social Anxiety Disorder is extensive. This review examined the symptomology and prevalence of SAD, and compared both individual therapy and group therapy as treatments for college students.

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  Neural Networks of Eye-Movements During Reading

  Trenton D. Jackman, Benjamin Carter, and Steven Luke

  Reading is an important part of normal life. We move our eyes 2-4 times per second. Each movement is called a saccade, and each pause is called a fixation. Progress has been made understanding saccade control during deliberate tasks. Not much is known about saccade control during more automatic tasks like reading. Using fMRI concurrently run with eye-tracking we looked at BOLD MRI response compared to amplitude of saccades, for 43 participants performing a simple paragraph reading task.

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  Do Municipal Officials Represent the Views of their Constituents?

  Steven Jamieson

  Municipalities make decisions that effect millions of Americans every day. Research has been done to assess the link between citizen’s preferences and municipal policy (Tausanovitchand Warshaw2014). However, the link between the policies and the officials who make them is missing.

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  Has Party Identification Changed in Utah?

  Devin Johanson

  Three weeks before the 2016 election, Utah was labeled as a swing state by most main-stream media outlets. The offensive rhetoric from both the Trump and Clinton campaigns and the rise of a popular independent candidate increased the potential for changes in the party identity of the Utah electorate. My research question is as follows: How has party identification changed in the state of Utah between the 2012 and 2016 elections?

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  Making Japan Great Again: The Imperial Rescript on Education

  Ayoung Kang, Alistor Skabelund, and Matthew Stephenson

  The Meiji government used the Imperial Rescript on Education in order to develop nationalism and respond against the dominating presence of Western Imperialism by standardizing Meiji education and interpreting it to justify militarism.

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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.