Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Anchor: February 2024, Hope College

The Anchor: 2024

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). As of Fall 2019 The Anchor has moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.

The Anchor: November 2023, Hope College

The Anchor: 2023

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). As of Fall 2019 The Anchor has moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.

The Anchor: October 2023, Hope College

The Anchor: 2023

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). As of Fall 2019 The Anchor has moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.

The Anchor: May 2023, Hope College

The Anchor: 2023

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). As of Fall 2019 The Anchor has moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.

Exploratory Study Of Undergraduate Pre-Health And Nursing Student Differences In Development, Bergen Johnson, Grace Rellinger

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

There is a great deal of research on how the professionalization and work of medical students, physicians, and nurses affect them, including burnout, stress, and empathy loss. We are interested in the earlier development of these trends and whether they already begin among undergraduate students pursuing health or nursing professions. There is a substantial knowledge gap in the differences and commonalities between pre-health, nursing, and students who have left health professions already. This research explores some of these commonalities and differences that begin developing quite early in nurses’ and physicians’ education. We look specifically at aspects we have labeled as …

Effects Of Religion And Health On Humility In Undergraduate Pre-Health And Nursing Students, Bergen Johnson

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Physicians who display greater humility tend to have better communication with patients, who then self-report as having better health (Ruberton et al. 2016). Research shows that older adults with increased humility have better self-rated health (Krause 2010). Religiosity also relates to humility in older adults, with more religious individuals scoring higher in humility (Krause 2010). Due to the benefits of humility for patients and physicians, the early character development of humility in undergraduate pre-health and nursing students is of interest — especially as this is a time of rapid character change and development (Clydesdale 2007). This study investigates whether the …

Conceptualizing Hope As A Virtue, Isabella Musherure, Esther Turahirwa

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

The purpose of this study is to develop a quantitative measure for conceptualizing hope as a virtue while expanding on the psychological framework of hope theory. Hope has predominantly been studied in positive psychology under Snyder's Hope Theory framework (Snyder, 2002). However, its current definition does not encompass a virtuous definition of hope, something that is inherently good. Hope Theory predominately studies hope as a personal trait that promotes individual success and well-being (Schornick et al., 2022). Virtues are a target of much scientific focus and a theoretical framework has recently been proposed to further its empirical study (Fowers et …

Religion’S Impact In Foreign Policy, Alexis Potapczak

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

This research paper analyzes religion's involvement in foreign policy concerning the time period that the United States was involved in the Cold War. Previous contributions to the research of foreign policy show that religion does have a profound impact, and now can be applied to theories surrounding the Cold War. I theorize that Cold War foreign policy was strongly influenced by Christian rhetoric and practices. I will compare the current ways of quantifying the involvement of religion in foreign policies with decisions made by the United States' foreign policy leaders during the Red Scare. Decision makers', like congressmen and President …

Humbly More Religious: The Role Of Humility In Religious Change, Chloe Swanson, Hannah Fuller, Carmen Casper, Isabella Brady

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Recent polls indicate that rates of individuals in the United States who identify as currently religious are declining (Twenge et al., 2016). Events such as COVID-19, presidential elections, and personal adversity affect religious change, likely because such events threaten one's religious worldview. One understudied area of religious change is intellectual humility. Religious change may be more welcome and less destabilizing. We seek to better understand religious change by examining the critical role of humility. In this study, individuals who attended a ex-vangelical conference participated in a year-long longitudinal study where they answered surveys in both 2019 and 2020. These surveys …

Political Biases In State Supreme Courts, Jackson Uyl

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

The judiciary of the United States makes thousands of decisions a year that directly affect the political landscape of the United States. When judges make decisions, they purportedly make their rulings based on the rule of law presented for a given case. Judges, however, are not without biases and can be prone to make rulings that have been cultivated by their political beliefs. This study focuses on the political decision making of state Supreme Court justices and examines how they make decisions that are potentially politically motivated in cases dealing with criminal rights and economic liberties. My research examines how …

Does Visual Dominance Influence Looking Patterns In Adults?, Erin Vokal, Lars Overos, Lauren Tocco

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Language acquisition begins with learning names of common objects by discovering the link between the word and the object. Yet even this is difficult because many objects are often in view when an object's name is spoken. Research shows that children hold objects close to their faces, making them larger in view than other objects, which we call "visual dominance". Infants learn names of objects better when the object named is visually dominant (Yu & Smith, 2012). We want to test if visual dominance aids word learning even when objects are not being held. We will test this by displaying …

The Beyond Ethnicity Project, Corri Zimmerman, Rita Kagaju

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

This research centers on Latina/o/x students' perceptions of their racial identity in light of issues related to privilege, racism, colorism, and belonging as they navigate the social and racial dynamics of a Predominantly White Institution. Focusing on the lived experience of 23 U.S. and foreign-born Latina/o/x, this ongoing research seeks to understand how skin color and place of origin play a role in understanding and interacting with these themes. Initial findings reveal that white-identifying students feel like outsiders in spaces that are predominantly white and in spaces that are predominately Latina/o/x. International students in this study faced ignorance about their …

Religiosity And Conspiracy Theories, Mark Fields

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Conspiracy theories are a popular phenomenon because they affect core beliefs and, accordingly, their actions. As prevalent as conspiracy theories are, we do not know why some people believe them and others do not, nor do we know why some conspiracy theories are more 'infectious' than others. I theorize that there is a positive correlation between belief in organized religion and belief in conspiracy theories because both religion and conspiracy theories are based on faith rather than empirical knowledge. Conspiracy theories vary in their characteristics, and therefore the variation between conspiracy theories might have an effect on the amount of …

Can’T Escape Hell: Negative Religious Beliefs Persist Among Religious Dones, Carmen Casper, Chloe Swanson, Isabella Brady, Hannah Fuller

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Previous research on deidentification from religion explores the residual effects of religion (i.e., religious residue; Van Tongeren et al., 2021). We sought to understand religious residue effects, and predicted that although currently religious individuals would report the highest degree of religious cognition, religious dones would report greater religious cognition than never religious individuals. We examined negative religious beliefs, taboos, pattern detection, and superstitious thinking. A total of 925 participants from the United States and the United Kingdom were recruited through Prolific; 300 currently religious, 298 religious "dones" and 327 never religious (236 male, 578 female, 4 transgender, 1 other, 4 …

Infant Object Transference And Play Preference, Elianna Kuehn, Danielle Mitchell, Grace Sarafa

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

This study investigates the link between virtual object learning and physical object play. This concept is relevant for today's digital culture where infants are routinely exposed to online educational programs (Barr, 2010). Research is unclear, however, about if and how what infants learn about objects on screen (visual preferences) applies to play choices — primary contexts for early learning.

The ability to recognize that an object's image on a screen is the same as the physical object is referred to as object transference (OT). For example, OT would be the ability to see an image of a cow on a …

Infants’ Ability To Associate Objects And Their Names, Nycole Kragt, Chloe Swanson

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

Language learning is a complex, dynamic process (Kaplan, 2008). Nevertheless, research indicates that infants as young as 6 months can learn the names for common objects (Bergelson & Swingley, 2012). Learning to associate objects and their names is a difficult task. However, research demonstrates that when infants see objects and hear their names simultaneously across multiple settings, they can begin to associate word-object pairings (Yu & Smith, 2008). This process is called "cross-situational learning." The present study uses eye-tracking to examine how infants accomplish cross-situational word learning. Infants are randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a naming condition where …

Religious Liberty In Modern American Constitutional Law, Leah Renkema

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

In its most recent completed term, the United States Supreme Court decided a number of key cases altering the placement of religious liberty in modern American constitutional law. While the Court has long struck different balances between preserving the constitutional mandates on both religious liberty and religious establishment, there has been a general consensus by those studying the Court that their interpretations over the past twenty years underneath the Roberts Court have trended towards the more accommodationist understanding of religious liberty. There is less agreement on what this newly composed Court and their recent decisions mean for the direction of …

Social And Emotional Knowledge In Hippocampal Amnesia, Ashley M. Trainor, Olivia Onderdonk

22nd Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2023)

The hippocampus has been found to play a role in general semantic knowledge, but it is unclear if it plays a role in social and emotional semantics. This study seeks to evaluate the role of the hippocampus in social and emotional semantics through the study of patients with hippocampal damage and severe amnesia. Although previous literature has shown that individuals who have damage to their hippocampus show deficits in neutral words, we predict that the hippocampal amnesic group should show the same social-emotional knowledge as the healthy control group. For this study, we investigate this by using more sensitive measures …

The Anchor: March 2023, Hope College

The Anchor: 2023

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). As of Fall 2019 The Anchor has moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.

The Anchor: December 2022, Hope College

The Anchor: 2022

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). As of Fall 2019 The Anchor has moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.

The Anchor: October 2022, Hope College

The Anchor: 2022

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). As of Fall 2019 The Anchor has moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.

Accountability: Construct Definition And Measurement Of A Virtue Vital To Flourishing, Charlotte Vanoyen-Witvliet, Sung Joon Jang, Byron R. Johnson, C. Stephen Evans, Jack W. Berry, Joseph Leman, Robert C. Roberts, John Peteet, Andrew B. Torrance, Ashley N. Hayden

Faculty Publications

Embracing accountability to others for one’s responsibilities within relationships is important for flourishing, yet underexamined. An interdisciplinary team defined the construct of accountability and developed an 11-item single-factor Accountability Scale. In national samples with US census demographic representation (total N = 1257), we conducted psychometric analyses using methods from classical test theory (exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses) and item response theory. The Accountability Scale demonstrated internal consistency, construct validity, test-retest reliability, and incremental validity. Accountability correlated positively with relational variables (agreeableness, empathy) responsibility-oriented variables (conscientiousness, self-regulation), virtues (gratitude, forgiveness, limitations-owning humility), relational repair, perceived meaning presence, and flourishing, inversely with …

A Many-Analysts Approach To The Relation Between Religiosity And Well-Being, Suzanne Hoogeveen, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Balazs Aczel, Yonathan Aditya, Alexandra J. Alayan, Peter J. Allen, Sacha Altay, Shilaan Alzahawi, Yulmaida Amir, Francis-Vincen Anthony, Obed Kwame Appiah, Quentin D. Atkinson, Adam Baimel, Merve Balkaya-Ince, Michela Balsamo, Sachin Banker, František Bartoš, Mario Becerra, Bertrand Beffara, Julia Beitner, Theiss Bendixen, Jana B. Berkessel, Renatas Berniūnas, Matthew I. Billet, Joseph Billingsley, Tiago Bortolini, Heiko Breitsohl, Amélie Bret, Faith L. Brown, Jennifer Brown, Claudia C. Brumbaugh, Jacek Buczny, Joseph Bulbulia, Saúl Caballero, Leonardo Carlucci, Cheryl L. Carmichael, Marco E. G. V. Cattaneo, Sarah J. Charles, Scott Claessens, Maxinne C. Panagopoulos, Angelo Brandelli Costa, Damien L. Crone, Stefan Czoschke, Christian Czymara, E. Damiano D'Urso, Örjan Dahlström, Anna Dalla Rosa, Henrik Danielsson, Jill De Ron, Ymkje Anna De Vries, Kristy K. Dean, Bryan J. Dik, David J. Disabato, Jaclyn K. Doherty, Tim Draws, Lucas Drouhot, Marin Dujmovic, Yarrow Dunham, Tobias Ebert, Peter A. Edelsbrunner, Anita Eerland, Christian T. Elbaek, Shole Farahmand, Hooman Farahmand, Miguel Farias, Abrey A. Feliccia, Kyle Fischer, Ronald Fischer, Donna Fisher-Thompson, Zoë Francis, Susanne Frick, Lisa K. Frisch, Diogo Geraldes, Emily Gerdin, Linda Geven, Omid Ghasemi, Erwin Gielens, Vukašin Gligorić, Kristin Hagel, Nandor Hajdu, Hannah R. Hamilton, Imaduddin Hamzah, Paul H. P. Hanel, Christopher E. Hawk, Karel K. Himawan, Benjamin C. Holding, Lina E. Homman, Moritz Ingendahl, Hilla Inkilä, Mary L. Inman, Chris-Gabriel Islam, Ozan Isler, David Izydorczyk, Bastian Jaeger, Kathryn A. Johnson, Jonathan Jong, Johannes A. Karl, Erikson Kaszubowski, Benjamin A. Katz, Lucas A. Keefer, Stijn Kelchtermans, John M. Kelly, Richard A. Klein, Bennett Kleinberg, Megan L. Knowles, Marta Kołczyńska, Dave Koller, Julia Krasko, Sarah Kritzler, Angelos-Miltiadis Krypotos, Thanos Kyritsis, Todd L. Landes, Ruben Laukenmann, Guy A. Lavender Forsyth, Aryeh Lazar, Barbara J. Lehman, Neil Levy, Ronda F. Lo, Paul Lodder, Jennifer Lorenz, Paweł Łowicki, Albert L. Ly, Esther Maassen, Gina M. Magyar-Russell, Maximilian Maier, Dylan R. Marsh, Nuria Martinez, Marcellin Martinie, Ihan Martoyo, Susan E. Mason, Anne Lundahl Mauritsen, Phil Mcaleer, Thomas Mccauley, Michael Mccullough, Ryan Mckay, Camilla M. Mcmahon, Amelia A. Mcnamara, Kira K. Means, Brett Mercier, Panagiotis Mitkidis, Benoît Monin, Jordan W. Moon, David Moreau, Jonathan Morgan, James Murphy, George Muscatt, Christof Nägel, Tamás Nagy, Ladislas Nalborczyk, Gustav Nilsonne, Pamina Noack, Ara Norenzayan, Michèle B. Nuijten, Anton Olsson-Collentine, Lluis Oviedo, Yuri G. Pavlov, James O. Pawelski, Hannah I. Pearson, Hugo Pedder, Hannah K. Peetz, Michael Pinus, Steven Pirutinsky, Vince Polito, Michaela Porubanova, Michael J. Poulin, Jason M. Prenoveau, Mark A. Prince, John Protzko, Campbell Pryor, Benjamin G. Purzycki, Lin Qiu, Julian Quevedo Pütter, André Rabelo, Milen L. Radell, Jonathan E. Ramsay, Graham Reid, Andrew J. Roberts, Lindsey M. Root Luna, Robert M. Ross, Piotr Roszak, Nirmal Roy, Suvi-Maria K. Saarelainen, Joni Y. Sasaki, Catherine Schaumans, Bruno Schivinski, Marcel C. Schmitt, Sarah A. Schnitker, Martin Schnuerch, Marcel R. Schreiner, Victoria Schüttengruber, Simone Sebben, Suzanne C. Segerstrom, Berenika Seryczyńska, Uffe Shjoedt, Müge Simsek, Willem W. A. Sleegers, Eliot R. Smith, Walter J. Sowden, Marion Späth, Christoph Spörlein, William Stedden, Andrea H. Stoevenbelt, Simon Stuber, Justin Sulik, Christiany Suwartono, Stylianos Syropoulos, Barnabas Szaszi, Peter Szecsi, Ben M. Tappin, Louis Tay, Robert T. Thibault, Burt Thompson, Christian M. Thurn, Josefa Torralba, Shelby D. Tuthill, Ann-Marie Ullein, Robbie C. M. Van Aert, Marcel A. L. M. Van Assen, Patty Van Cappellen, Olmo R. Van Den Akker, Ine Van Der Cruyssen, Jolanda Van Der Noll, Noah N. N. Van Dongen, Caspar J. Van Lissa, Valerie Van Mulukom, Don Van Ravenzwaaij, Casper J. J. Van Zyl, Leigh Ann Vaughn, Bojana Većkalov, Bruno Verschuere, Michelangelo Vianello, Felipe Vilanova, Allon Vishkin, Vera Vogel, Leonie V. D. E. Vogelsmeier, Shoko Watanabe, Cindel J. M. White, Kristina Wiebels, Sera Wiechert, Zachary Z. Willett, Maciej Witkowiak, Charlotte Vanoyen-Witvliet, Dylan Wiwad, Robin Wuyts, Dimitris Xygalatas, Xin Yang, Darren J. Yeo, Onurcan Yilmaz, Natalia Zarzeczna, Yitong Zhao, Josjan Zijlmans, Michiel Van Elk, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers

Faculty Publications

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N = 10, 535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given …

Stress And Social Support Of Foster Parents During Covid-19, Carlie Mcniff

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Foster parents provide crucial care to hundreds of thousands of children in the U.S., and with their role comes a variety of challenges. They face a great amount of stress which is why the turnover rate is high, and there is a critical need for more foster parents. Uncertainty is a large component of the foster care system, and the COVID-19 pandemic heightened this. It is unknown how stress that foster parents have experienced during this time was affected, and this study seeks to explore that. Additionally, this study focuses on types and sources of social support of foster parents …

Visual Attention Across Language Development, Ayanna Bailey, Chloe Swanson, Meriya L. Zalma

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Would you consider yourself a visual learner? Many of us have a sense that what we learn depends on what we see. But how exactly does visual learning happen? How does that change as we grow older? We examined how visual attention changes across development and how that relates to word learning. Previous research on word learning has proposed various ways that people may learn words. However, there is a gap in understanding how visual attention might be crucial for this task, despite the fact that many words are labels for things we see. Previous literature highlights connections between higher …

Mental Health And Homelessness, Makayla Wilson

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, one area tragically impacted has been access to secure housing. The huge economic impacts of the shutdowns and job losses of the pandemic prompted the federal as well as state governments to provide emergency resources for help keep people housed as well as to help those without housing to secure a place to live. These interventions have had many important impacts. They have not, however, reduced or ended the rising levels of homelessness nationally since 2016. The result is an increasingly visible epidemic of unsheltered homelessness, affecting both individuals and families. When analyzing …

Social Support And Change In Empathy In Undergraduate Pre-Health Students, Merrik Campagna

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Many medical education studies show that medical students often lose empathy throughout their time in medical school, but thus far we do not know whether these trends have their roots in earlier educational experiences. This research begins to fill this gap, exploring whether indications of these changes in empathy start in undergraduate programs. This is important because patients who feel more empathy from their doctors tend to listen to and trust their doctors more. If we can better understand what factors lead to a loss of empathy we can adjust programs to help negate this effect. Our data comes from …

Analysis Of Disability Rights Policy In American Charter Schools, Lily Kate Pritchard

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 explicitly states that any individual with a disability–physical, emotional, cognitive, or otherwise–is to be protected from discrimination regarding public services, including education. This paper will examine how American charter schools often do not provide such inclusive education. Data indicate that charter schools frequently manipulate requirements in order to avoid serving students with special needs. This paper will look at the problems that exist within charter schools–notably in the Midwest–and explore potential policy solutions to address the discrimination against students meant to be served by special education programs. Many of these schools work around …

Analysis Of United States National Security Policy On Cyberterrorism From China, Megan Mead

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

Cyberterrorism is a relatively new threat globally but has increased rapidly in recent years due to the development of more sophisticated and advanced computer-based technology. Many people question the existence of a substantial threat from the Chinese government in terms of their use of cyber technology on the United States. Intelligence shows China has continuously used their cyber technology capabilities as a way to exploit other countries, businesses, and local populations. Scholarly research, news outlets, and official government documents all conclude that Chinese cyberterrorism is a large security threat to the United States. China has used their technology to infiltrate …

Poetic Politics: Renewing The Black Jeremiad On The Inaugural Stage, Rachel Johnson

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman stunned the United States with her captivating performance of “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” during the 2021 inaugural ceremony for President Biden and Vice President Harris. Analyzing this political poem, we contribute to the rhetorical scholarship of inaugural ceremonies and demonstrate how Gorman’s performance renews the tradition of Black jeremiads. Specifically, we argue that Gorman’s performance creates a “double play” on white expectations, thereby crafting a rival version of democratic unity as she poetically envisions a “We, the people” that does not center on white men and is not …