Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Depression, Anxiety, And Stress On Heart Rate Variability During Self-Critical And Self-Compassionate Exercises, Derek C. Bartlett

Theses and Dissertations

The cognitions of individuals who experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress have been well documented, but their physiological reactions have not. The present study examines the physiological reactions of individuals with elevated levels of depression, anxiety, and stress during a self-critical and self-compassionate writing exercise to see if there is a difference in comparison to healthy participants. This study is a secondary analysis of data that was collected from a randomized controlled trial where participants followed a protocol. This protocol consisted of a 5-minute baseline, a 10-minute breathing exercise or nature video, 5-minutes of a self-critical writing exercise, 5-minutes …

Brand Activism And Gender: Nike As A Case Study, Kirsten Rasmussen

Theses and Dissertations

Nike is a prominent company that engages in brand activism, a marketing approach wherein they brand themselves as socially progressive by adopting public stances on controversial social issues. Because Nike resides at the intersection of media and sports, both of which are institutions that gender plays an important role in, an exploration of how Nike constructs gender in its commercials may illuminate the authenticity of its brand activism and progressive politics. Through a content analysis of 131 commercials released by Nike in the past decade, I explore whether their reputation as a socially progressive company extends to genuinely diverse and …

Mistreatment Of Wild Animals In Captivity, Madison Coleman

Ballard Brief

Wild animals kept in zoos, aquariums, marine parks and theme parks, and other types of captive establishments endure severe mistreatment. both due to the inherently stressful nature of captivity as well as certain conditions within these facilities that exacerbate the mistreatment. The general views that society holds of animals, the ability for humans to profit from captive animals. inadequate monitoring of animal treatment, and inadequate worker training are all causes of this animal mistreatment. When animals suffer this mistreatment, they endure severe psychological harm (evidenced by chronic stress. stereotypic behavior. hyper-aggressive behavior, and maternal neglect) and physical harm (such as …

Disenfranchisement And Suppression Of Black Voters In The United States, Derek Hill, Madison Coleman, Erica Bassett

Ballard Brief

The disenfranchisement of Black Americans has long outlasted the end of the Civil War, with modern instances of voter suppression in the form of limitations on absentee and early voting, stricter voter ID requirements. restrictions on voter registration. and other systemic barriers that decrease the voting engagement of minority populations. Today. Black voter disenfranchisement primarily takes the form of voting restrictions for incarcerated individuals. Systemic barriers such as gerrymandering, voting regulations for imprisoned persons. voter ID laws, lack of access to polling locations, and other examples contribute to the disenfranchisement of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. This …

The Effect Of Lgbt Film Exposure On Policy Preference, Grant Baldwin

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

No abstract provided.

A Nonhuman Primate Model Of The Out Of Africa Theory Utilizing Chinese- And Indian-Derived Rhesus Macaques (Macaca Mulatta), Jacob N. Hunter

Theses and Dissertations

Evidence suggests that certain genotypic variants associated with novelty-seeking and aggressiveness, such as the 7-repeat dopamine D4 receptor variant (DRD4-7R), short (s) allele of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT), and the low-activity variant of the MAOa promoter (MAOa-L), are more prevalent in human groups that radiated out of Africa than human groups that remained in Africa. Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), like humans, are a widespread species of primates that needed to adapt to different regional environments with one group, Indian-derived rhesus macaques, largely occupying predictable and resource-rich environments, while the other group, the Chinese-derived rhesus macaques, has come to occupy less …

Tessellated Pictures And Traditional Piety, Matthew K. Higham

Theses and Dissertations

Nearly 300 years before the rise of a ‘Christianized,’ Eastern Roman Empire, generations of inhabitants in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East had witnessed a considerable variety and evolution of religious thought. As a result of the expansion of Christian sects throughout the Near East and Mediterranean, in 325 CE, Emperor Constantine I convened a theological council to unite his vast kingdom in the East under a single religious creed. While revisions to the text of the first ‘Nicene Creed’ and subsequent councils would be organized, many dissenting factions refused to relinquish their long-held beliefs and traditions. Some of these …

The Practice Of Belonging: Can Learning Entrepreneurship Accelerate And Aid The Social Inclusion Of Refugees In The United States, Jabra F. Ghneim

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role that culinary entrepreneurship communities of practice, using Lave and Wenger's Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) model (Lave & Wenger, 1991), can lead to better social and economic inclusion for Middle Eastern Muslim refugee chefs in Utah. The life history approach was used to construct life histories for two Middle Eastern Muslim refugee chefs in Utah who joined the Spice Kitchen Incubator (SKI) program. SKI is a community of practice funded by the International Rescue Committee to assist refugee chefs in the resettlement process. This was an exploratory study, and given the limited number of cases reviewed, …

Subsistence Practices At Nancy Patterson Village, Elizabeth C. M. Whisenhunt

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis was to gain an insight into the macrobotanical subsistence practices of Nancy Patterson Village and see how those practices fit in with the practices of the general Mesa Verde region by analyzing the burnt macrobotanical remains found in processed flotation samples. Previous work done at Nancy Patterson Village showed a shift in the faunal subsistence practices to a greater reliance on domesticated turkey during the Pueblo III period. However, the macro botanical analysis showed a higher richness of wild plant taxa in the Pueblo III period when compared to Pueblo II. The change to a …

Married Mothers' Multiple Roles: Implications For Cardiovascular Health, Tyler C. Graff

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, the traditional nuclear family, as defined by social role theory with mother at home and father in the workplace, is no longer the norm. Nearly three out of every four women with children under the age of 18 are part of the workforce. Mothers are frequently juggling multiple roles as well as most of the responsibilities that are inherent in these roles. The current project examined diurnal ambulatory blood pressure influences associated with the responsibility of having a greater number of roles. We investigate differences between a self-reported healthy population of 112 married stay-at-home and 112 married …

Relational And Mental Health Outcomes Of Trauma And Disaster: The Medicating Role Of Grit, Lacey A. Bagley

Theses and Dissertations

Current literature focusing on those exposed to disaster includes calls for more studies with populations who have regular exposure to extreme weather events. The current study reported on a secondary data analysis with a sample of 240 heterosexual couples living in or near coastal regions in the southeast US, who were at risk of experiencing disaster events during the 2019 hurricane season (June-December). An actor-partner interdependence model was fit to the dyadic data via path analysis to test the mediating effect of grit on the relationship dyadic coping (mental health and attachment behaviors) and disaster-related losses, accounting for trauma history. …

Experiential Education In The Writing Classroom: Developing Habits For Citizenship, Anika Shumway

Theses and Dissertations

As political polarity and social divisiveness increase in the United States, more organizations and scholars are calling on institutions of higher education to rise to the occasion and incorporate into their objectives the development of competent citizenship (The National Task Force). Writing classrooms are particularly suited to these kinds of objectives as writing already proposes relationships between rhetor and audience that have ethical dimensions and require mutual honesty, accountability, and respect (Duffy, "The Good Writer"). Additionally, the Framework for Success, a document that has become central to shaping the goals of writing classrooms, articulates habits of mind, like openness and …

Beyond #Metoo: Addressing Workplace Sexual Misconduct Cases And The Targeted Use Of Non-Disclosure Agreements, Taylor Percival, Lane Gibbons

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Recent allegations against prominent figures have brought the targeted use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in sexual misconduct cases to public knowledge. NDAs have historically been used in a variety of ways in such cases, but situations of coercion and uneven power dynamics often leave victims with no real choice, and they end up losing their right to speak publicly about their experiences. This paper discusses the history of NDAs in sexual misconduct cases, explores when and why their enforcement is unlawful, and proposes the adoption of federal legislation like the BE HEARD Act to limit the inappropriate use of NDAs.

The Book Of Mormon: A Powerful Model For Distance Education, Adam R. Jardine

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many within the Church Educational System to participate in online delivery for classroom instruction. Success has varied, and many teachers have faced not only the difficulties of a new and possibly unfamiliar delivery method but also the challenge of becoming online course designers. The realities of COVID-19 forced educational systems, both secular and religious, to pivot their educational strategy, causing online delivery to become the primary educational delivery method in many areas. What many educators initially experienced during the pandemic was not regular online delivery, but rather “emergency remote teaching.” Though the COVID-19 pandemic produced …

Lengthy Minimum Parole Requirements: A Denial Of Hope, Heather Walker

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Using the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court has made sweeping changes to juvenile sentencing in the last fifteen years. The Court has stated that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole and life sentences without the possibility of parole for non-homicide offenders are unconstitutional. Nevertheless, there are still unanswered questions in juvenile sentencing. One under-researched aspect of this is the role that lengthy minimum parole requirements play in the constitutionality of juvenile sentencing. This type of sentencing lacks express legislative support, it does not have a legitimate penological justification, and it denies juveniles …

How Many Ways Can You Vocalize Emotion? Introducing An Audio Corpus Of Acted Emotion, Logan Ricks Kowallis

Theses and Dissertations

Emotion recognition from facial expressions has been thoroughly explored and explained through decades of research, but emotion recognition from vocal expressions has yet to be fully explained. This project builds on previous experimental approaches to create a large audio corpus of acted vocal emotion. With a large enough sample size, both in number of speakers and number of recordings per speaker, new hypotheses can be explored for differentiating emotions. Recordings from 131 subjects were collected and made available in an online corpus under a Creative Commons license. Thirteen acoustic features from 120 subjects were used as dependent variables in a …

"I Understand, Honey": Perceived Spousal Empathy's Moderating Influence On The Links Between Depression And Marital Satisfaction And Marital Satisfaction And Physical Health, F. Javier Celestino

Theses and Dissertations

An adapted version of the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation model was used as a theoretical guide for this study, which proposes that adaptive processes exist and can moderate relationships between enduring vulnerabilities and different outcomes. Relationships of interest include the negative link between depression and marital satisfaction and the positive link between marital satisfaction and physical health. An adaptive process of interest is empathy, due to its well-researched positive impact on mental, relational, and physical health. This study examined whether perceived spousal empathy (i.e., the empathy perceived by one spouse coming from their spouse) had any moderating effects on the previously mentioned links. …

Empathic Listening Processes In Couple Therapy: A Task Analysis Of Effective Interventions By Therapists In Training, Samuel Ryland

Theses and Dissertations

Listening is a fundamental and deceptively complicated component of talk therapy that has received very little specific research attention. The work of Carl Rogers and others promotes the importance of empathic listening to create safety and process client experiences, and several models identify its importance in processing and regulating client emotions (especially in couple therapy, where empathic listening can disrupt rigid conflict cycles and model coregulation skills). Much of the dysregulation and resistance we see in therapy may be related to a perceived lack of safety caused by persistent conflict or previous trauma, explained by the unconscious processes of the …

Let's Talk! An Investigation Of Parent-Child Conversations About Self-Conscious Emotions, Alexandra Marie Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

Parents play an important role in socializing children's emotion understanding. Previous research on parents' conversations with their children shows that parents emphasize different aspects of emotion contexts depending on the emotion depicted. However, there is limited research on how parents and children discuss self-conscious emotions, such as embarrassment, guilt, and shame. The current study explored the socialization of self-conscious emotions in parent-child conversations during a storybook task. One hundred and sixty-six children between the ages of 24 and 36 months were observed reading a storybook with their parent. Analyses of parent-child conversations revealed that while parent and child utterances were …

To Control Or Be Controlled: Sibling Control And Adolescent Sibling Relationship Quality, Lauren Elizabeth Andrus

Theses and Dissertations

The current body of research pertaining to sibling control dynamics look specifically at either the absence or presence of control within the sibling relationship. Research to date has not differentiated between a sibling's experience of being controlling versus being controlled. This study examined adolescent sibling control dynamics and its link with sibling relationship quality (sibling closeness and sibling conflict), and how those links are moderated by birth order and having an agreeable personality. Data were analyzed from 327 families with two adolescent siblings between the ages of 12 and 18 (Older Sibling M = 17.17 years, SD = .94; Younger …

Censorship And The Satanic Verses: Policing Blasphemy In A Secular World, Alixa Brobbey

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Free speech is currently a hotly debated topic in the world of arts. This thesis traces the history and abolition of blasphemy law in England in light of its relationship with censorship in English literature. I examine the Rushdie Affair and its legacy, particularly in comparison to the Gay News trial. Building on previous scholarship, I examine the arguments that hate speech laws serve as a replacement for blasphemy law. I conclude with the suggestion that hate speech laws be amended to include a clause specifying that works of artistic merit cannot be prosecuted under such laws, mirroring the language …

How Does External Referencing Define Sense Of Self And Link To Relational Well-Being?, Amber A. Price

Theses and Dissertations

As individuals develop, it is natural to reference social situations to learn about the self. Even as adults, some learning about the self comes from interactions with others. However, when adults consistently allow others to define their sense of self, their focus may shift away from connection and intimacy toward external factors. No studies have examined how allowing others to define the sense of self is associated with intimacy and satisfaction in relationships. Using structural equation modeling, this study examined whether allowing others to define the self is associated with a decrease in emotional intimacy, relational satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction …

The Communicative Effects Of Anonymity Online: A Natural Language Analysis Of The Faceless, Caleb Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

An ever-increasing number of Americans have an active social media

presence online. As of March 2020, an estimated 79% of Americans were active

monthly users of some sort. Many of these online platforms allow users to

operate anonymously which could potentially lead to shifts in communicative

behavior. I first discuss my compilation process of the Twitter Anonymity

Dataset (TAD), a human-classified dataset of 100,000 Twitter accounts that are

categorized by their level of identifiability to their real-world agent. Next, I

investigate some of the structural differences between the classification levels

and employ a variety of Natural Language Processing models and …

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Psychological Distress, And Fathering Behaviors, Kevin Shafer, Scott D. Easton

Faculty Publications

Objective

This study examines the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), internalized and externalized psychological distress, and six measures of parenting behavior among fathers in the United States.

Background

Prior research on ACEs and parenting has focused almost exclusively on mothers, specific types of childhood adversity, and the intergenerational transmission of abuse, neglect, and other traumatic experiences. This study extends the literature by considering ACEs in fathers, using a multidimensional measure of ACEs, and multiple measures of positive and negative fathering behavior.

Method

Using the ecological model of father involvement, this study is based on a national sample of more …

Second Languange Acquisition Of /S/ -Weakinging In A Study Abroad Context, Earl K. Brown, Alicia Harley, Bret Linford

Faculty Publications

This study examines the second language (L2) development of variable /s/-weakening in the spontaneous speech of L2 learners of Spanish who studied abroad in either Dominican Republic, where /s/-weakening is widespread, or central Spain, where /s/-weakening is much less common. Learners’ realizations of /s/ were coded impressionistically and acoustically by measuring voicing, center of gravity, and duration. The results show that regardless of the study abroad location, students did not change the amount of sibilance they produced over time. However, they became more nativelike with respect to /s/-voicing and duration. Additionally, whereas some linguistic factors were found to significantly constrain …

The Roles Of Identity Formation And Moral Identity In College Student Mental Health, Health-Risk Behaviors, And Psychological Well-Being, Sam A. Hardy, Stephen W. Francis, Byron L. Zamboanga, Su Yeong Kim, Spencer G. Anderson, Larry F. Forthun

Faculty Publications

Objectives: This study examined the roles of identity formation and moral identity in predicting college student mental health (anxiety and depressive symptoms), health-risk behaviors (hazardous alcohol use and sexual risk taking), and psychological well-being (self-esteem and meaning).

Method: The sample comprised 9,500 college students (aged 18–25 years, mean = 19.78, standard deviation = 1.61: 73% female; 62% European American), from 31 different universities, who completed an online self-report survey. Results: Structural equation models found that identity maturity (commitment making and identity synthesis) predicted 5 of the health outcomes (except sexual risk taking), and moral identity predicted ail of the health …

Religiousness And Levels Of Hazardous Alcohol Use: A Latent Profile Analysis, Peter J. Jankowski, Sam A. Hardy, Byron L. Zamboanga, Lindsay S. Ham, Seth J. Schwartz, Su Yeong Kim, Larry F. Forthun, Melina M. Bersamin, Roxanne A. Donovan, Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Erica A. Hurley, Miguel Ángel Cano

Faculty Publications

Prior person-centered research has consistently identified a subgroup of highly religious participants that uses significantly less alcohol when compared to the other subgroups. The construct of religious motivation is absent from existing examinations of the nuanced combinations of religiousness dimensions within persons, and alcohol expectancy valuations have yet to be included as outcome variables. Variable-centered approaches have found religious motivation and alcohol expectancy valuations to play a protective role against individuals’ hazardous alcohol use. The current study examined latent religiousness profiles and hazardous alcohol use in a large, multisite sample of ethnically diverse college students. The sample consisted of 7412 …

Open Access And Academic Freedom: Teasing Out Some Important Nuances, Rick Anderson

Faculty Publications

Discussion of the ways in which Open Access (OA) and academic freedom interact is fraught for a number of reasons, not least of which is the unwillingness of some participants in the discussion to acknowledge that OA might have any implications for academic freedom at all. Thus, any treatment of such implications must begin with foundational questions. Most basic among them are: first, what do we mean when we say ‘open access’; second, what do we mean when we say ‘academic freedom’? The answers to these questions are not as obvious as one might expect (or hope), but when they …

"Men Were Deceivers Ever": Deceptive Appearances In Much Ado About Nothing, Shelby Shipley

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

How To Sell A Friend: Disinterest As Relational Work In Direct Sales, Curtis Child

Faculty Publications

Economic sociologists agree that monetary transactions are not necessarily antithetical to meaningful social relationships. However, they also accept that creating “good matches” between the two requires hard work. In this article, I contribute to the relational program in economic sociology by examining a common but understudied type of work in which one party to a relationship stands to benefit from it financially. I identify in these highly commercialized contexts a particular style of relational work anticipated, but not fully developed, in Pierre Bourdieu’s writings: disinterest. I argue that the disinterested style is manifest by economically implicated individuals who downplay their …