Mormon Studies Commons^™

The Legend Of The Bear Lake Monster, Melissa Anderson Asay

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The Bear Lake Monster is a legend that has persisted for centuries. This monster is rooted in Shoshone oral traditions and hold the potential to be based off of fossils found in the Shoshone territory. This living legend was later amplified by Mormon settlers. One settler in particular, Joseph C. Rich, played a significant role in shaping its narrative. Though he eventually admitted to fabricating sightings to encourage settlement, belief in the creature remains alive today. The serpent’s presence in local lore has undeniably influenced the Bear Lake region, shaping both its identity and tourism industry. This legend serves as …

A Relational-Cultural Approach To Examining Concealment Among Latter-Day Saint Sexual Minorities, Samuel Skidmore, Sydney A. Sorrell, Kyrstin Lake

Psychology Student Research

Sexual minorities often conceal their sexual identity from others to avoid distal stressors. Such concealment efforts occur more frequently among sexual minorities in religious settings where rejection and discrimination are more likely. Using a sample of 392 Latter-day Saint (“Mormon”) sexual minorities, we assess (a) the effect of religious affiliation on concealment efforts, (b) the relationship between social support, authenticity, and religious commitment on concealment, and (c) the moderating effect of authenticity on religious commitment and concealment. Multi-level model analyses revealed that religious affiliation alone accounted for over half (51.7%) of the variation in concealment efforts for Latter-day Saint sexual …

From Mission To Competition: The Experiences Of 10 Lds Missionary Student-Athletes Returning To Competition In The National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I, Matthew J. Moore, Leslee A. Fisher, Lindsey A. Miossi, Zach T. Smith, Jacob C. Jensen,

Movement and Being: The Journal of the Christian Society for Kinesiology, Leisure and Sports Studies

The purpose of the current study was to explore the experiences of LDS missionary student-athletes returning to competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I (DI). Using Consensual Qualitative Research methods (CQR; Hill, 2012) including a semi-structured interview guide, 10 DI student-athletes/returned LDS missionaries were interviewed regarding their experience (i.e., mean age of 25 years; baseball, cross-country/track and field, football, and swimming). A research team with five members constructed four domains and 16 categories representing DI student-athlete/returned LDS missionary chronological identity changes during this experience: (a) the development of an LDS missionary identity; (b) challenges associated with returning …

Relationship Between Religion And Native American Identity, Gennaro W. Milo

Graduate Research Posters

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between religious affiliation and Native American Identity. Based on the findings of this study, a component of a Native American's Identity is their religious affiliation. To contribute to the research on Native American and Alaskan Native identity, this study targeted the teenage demographic of ages 12 to 19 years old. Over growing concern, expressed by tribal elders, about a loss of cultural identity amongst teens, this study investigates a connection between a teen’s sense of identity and their religious affiliation (Quigley, 2019). This study used a multiple-choice …

Clark Memorandum: Fall 2021, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• Truth, Civility, and Advocacy
• Cultivating a Deeper Faith in Jesus Christ
• Can Religion Be a Healing Force in Society?
• Navigating Life’s Uncertainties

Read on Issuu

Clark Memorandum: Spring 2021, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• Rooting Out Racism
• How Do We Practice Our Religion While We Practice?
• Hope in Hardship
• The Unity Paradox

Read on Issuu

Conflict Experienced By Lds Working Mothers, Sarah L. Maxfield

Marriott Student Review

This article analyzes and attempts to answer the question of what conflict LDS working mothers experience. It does this through a literature review, analyzing the different studies that have been conducted on the subject by looking at their findings, scope, and assessment of the situation. This article summarizes and extrapolates on the current academic literature surrounding working moms, religiosity, conflict, and the role of sanctification as one method of combating it.

Lay Latitude: Latter-Day Saint Women's Agency In Northwest Arkansas, Andrew Tompkins

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The question of women’s agency in gender-traditional religions has been the subject of much scholarly attention over the past four decades, but little research has been done focusing specifically on Latter-day Saint women and their identities and roles within the structure and practice of the Church. In popular media representations, Latter-Day Saint women are often depicted as submissive or surviving, either powerless pawns or resistant warriors. However, many Latter-day Saint women find fulfillment and empowerment within and because of, rather than outside or in spite of, the institutional Church. In this thesis, I explore women’s agency in Northwest Arkansas’ Greendale …

Mormonism And Same-Sex Marriage: Theological Underpinnings And New Perspectives, Seth R. Payne

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

Sexual Encounters And Manhood Acts: Evangelicals, Latter-Day Saints, And Religious Masculinities, Kelsy Burke, Amy Moff Hudec

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The experiences of men in traditional religions are complex, at times inconsistent, and not necessarily the direct result of religious teachings. This article draws from two qualitative case studies to examine the ways in which evangelical and Latter-Day Saint men understand masculinity and their spiritual beliefs in the context of sexual activity. The authors present two masculine practices—acceptance of sexual rejection and sexual indifference— that allow religious men in this study to simultaneously challenge and uphold the system of hegemonic masculinity that their traditions promote. These findings point to the moments when creative, interpretative work helps religious men to reconcile …

Fathers' Religious And Family Involvement At Home; And Work And Family Outcomes, Roxane O. Whyte

Theses and Dissertations

This study proposes and confirms two new predictors of work and family outcomes, thus far unexplored in existing work-family literature: fathers' religious involvement at home and fathers' family involvement at home. It is the first study to date to document that these produce a crossover effect to positively influence work-related outcomes including work-family conflict, work-family fit and job satisfaction.
Data come from employed married fathers and their spouses participating in the 2001 BYU Marriott School of Management Alumni Work and Family Survey (n = 210), all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Findings are that …

Measuring Prejudiced Attitudes Toward Mexicans In Latter-Day Saint Missionaries During Missionary Service In The American Southwest, Jared A. Montoya

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the foundations of prejudiced attitudes toward Mexicans held by White Americans and to investigate a means of reducing it, paying specific attention to prejudice found within a subpopulation of White Americans. The origins of American prejudice toward Mexicans are outlined using both historical and psychological explanations. An understanding of these origins leads to the notion that increased favorable contact is the best method for reducing prejudice. A field study focusing on prejudice toward Mexicans among ecclesiastical volunteers demonstrated that missionary service can be considered a means of favorable contact. Eighty-one White American …

The Longterm Effects Of Television Mediation On Lds Young Single Adults: An Exploratory Study, Jennia Parkin

Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory study examines what Latter-day Saint young single adults remember about their parents mediating the television and its use, and how those recollections contribute to their current attitudes and values toward the media, as well as their media choices. A stratified random sample of 267 LDS young single adults across the United States and outside the state of Utah responded to a cross sectional mail or online survey. The three mediation styles established by Valkenburg, Krcmar, Peeters, and Marseille (1999)—Restrictive, Instructive, and Coviewing—were used as the independent variables while scales assessing television offensiveness levels, attitudes, orientation, and usage were …

Balance And Conflict: Variation In Attaining Work-Family Fit Among A Homogeneous Population, Laura C. Koch

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of work-family fit has recently emerged in the work and family literature, comparable to work-family balance in that it represents interactions between work and family, and yet distinct from balance in its sense of universal ownership and responsibility. Using Barnett's (1998) model of the work-social system interface as a framework, this study explores the relationship between and predictive factors of work-family fit and work-family balance. Data are from a survey of Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management (MSM) graduate school alumni (n = 273). Findings indicate that fit and balance are indeed two separate constructs, with fit …

Making Friends To Last A Lifetime: An Ethnographic Study Of Parasocial Relationships And Soap Opera Characters, Emmalee Elizabeth Haight Pryor

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to build theory about parasocial relationships and to examine what affect, if any, religion had on parasocial relationships. Using qualitative methods, the researcher watched the show three times with five women followed by an in-depth interview. The women chosen were LDS stay-at-home moms who had watched a soap opera for at least a year.
From this data came several surprising findings about religion and soap opera viewing. The women said they did not feel guilty about the content of the shows, rather the time required to watch. This guilt was alleviated by structuring their …

Religiosity And Delinquency: A Test Of The Religious Ecology Hypothesis, S. Cory Harmon

Theses and Dissertations

Research testing the relationship between adolescent religiosity and delinquent behavior is inconclusive. Some studies show a significant negative relationship while others indicate no relationship. Stark (1996) asserts that the relationship between religiosity and delinquency is a function of community religiosity as opposed to personal religiosity. Thus, in areas of high religiosity, there will be a strong relationship, while areas of low religiosity will show no relationship. This study looks at the relationship between religiosity and delinquency of LDS youth in four different religious ecologies: Utah County (high religious ecology), the East coast (moderate religious ecology), the Pacific Northwest (low religious …

Becoming Mormon Men: Male Rites Of Passage And The Rise Of Mormonism In Nineteenth-Century America, Bruce R. Lott

Theses and Dissertations

The evidence presented in this thesis supports a view of the first Mormon men as coming from the agrarian majority of early nineteenth-century American farmers and artisans who embraced a set of manly ideals that differed significantly, in many ways, from those embraced by their middle-class contemporaries. These men's life writings attest to boyhood experiences of working alongside their fathers as soon as they were physically able, and subsequently of acting as substitute farmers and breadwinners as well as being put out to work outside the direct supervision of their fathers. Such experiences enabled them to frequently follow in the …

Dating Behavior Of Latter-Day Saint Male Returned Missionaries: A Process Of Managing Desires, Nancy C. Mclaughlin

Theses and Dissertations

Each year thousands of Latter-day Saint males return to their homes after serving a two year religious mission. According to Latter-day Saint doctrine and cultural beliefs, these young men are expected to resume a normal life including dating and involvement in romantic relationships. Research and Latter-day Saint doctrine related to the dating behavior of returned missionaries (RMs) is reviewed. Most previous research has emphasized the quantitative analysis of single aspects of RMs dating behavior such as dating frequency and social status. In an attempt to add to this field of research, this qualitative analysis explored the attitudes and experiences of …

Representing Culture: Reflexivity And Mormon Folklore Scholarship, David A. Allred

Theses and Dissertations

When writing about a culture, ethnographers can convey important insights about society. However, ethnography can also misrepresent culture. To address this fact, reflexive ethnography attempts to influence both the methodology and the rhetoric of writing about culture. Reflexivity seeks to acknowledge the bias of the researcher. To include the voice of the cultural insiders, and to more closely represent the dynamics of cultures that always have an element of hybridity. However, reflexive ethnographies can also be unwieldy and impractical. Therefore, one must find a pragmatic application of reflexivity.

Reflexivity can have application to Mormon folklore studies. The most important Mormon …

The Meaning Of Religious Belief, Practice, And Community For Latter-Day Saint Fathers Of Children With Special Needs, Loren Dean Marks

Theses and Dissertations

While the tragedy of American fatherlessness has evoked a growing body of research, religious beliefs, practices, and communities have not been a significant part of the scholarly discussion. This article discusses possible reasons for this and reviews the religion and family literature with a focus on fathers. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 19 Latter-day Saint (LDS) fathers of children with special needs and analyzed to examine the meaning of religious experience for these fathers and their families. Analysis indicated three dimensions of religious experience: spiritual belief, religious practice, and faith community. The spiritual belief in an eternal perspective, including the …

Latter-Day Saint Fathers Of Children With Special Needs: A Phenomenological Study, Michael M. Olson

Theses and Dissertations

This research, presents a qualitative study of six Latter-day Saint fathers of children with special needs. In-depth interviews were used to examine the demands and resources fathers draw upon in meeting the needs of their child(ren), the application of the conceptual ethic of fathering as generative work and crisis/stress theory, as well as an analysis of how fathers incorporated their religious beliefs, faith, and practices into fathering their special needs children. Narrative accounts are used to illustrate the results. These results are then applied to an integrated conceptual framework and clinical applications are made.

Creating High-Quality Marriages: A Qualitative Study Of Religious Couples, Jerry Lyman Redd

Theses and Dissertations

This study is a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with thirty-two couples who have been married for eight years. Although the couples in this sample have similar religious, economic, and cultural backgrounds, the quality of each marriage is quite different. Ten couples have exceptionally high-quality marriages, eighteen have average-quality marriages, three are struggling, and one couple has been divorced. The purpose of this study was to better understand what the ten couples with high-quality marriages are doing to create successful relationships. I conclude that high-quality marriages are created by a couple's participation in a particular process with a specific paradigm …

Religious Couples' Reported Effects Of Prayer In Conflict Situations, Julie Ann Stout

Theses and Dissertations

For religious couples, the spiritual domain stands alongside the biological, psychological, and systemic domains as an influence upon interaction and mechanism for change. This study is a quantitative expansion of Butler, Gardner, and Bird's (1998) qualitative study, of the change dynamics of prayer. This study attempted to improve the generalizability of the Butler et al. (1998) study through its use of a larger, and religiously and geographically more diverse sample. This study investigated the effects of prayer during times of marital conflict through a quantitative methodology with a survey design. The researchers developed a survey based on the findings of …

Religiosity And Life Satisfaction Among Lds College Students, Po Nien Chou

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between religiosity and life satisfaction among Latter-day Saints (LDS) college students. The scales used were the religiosity scale by Chadwick and Top (1993), and the life satisfaction scale by Neugarten, Havighurst and Tobin (1961). The analysis was based on data obtained from 222 students (55.5%) who responded. A prediction model was used to develop a regression equation. Pearson correlation analysis was used to evaluate the correlation between religiosity and life satisfaction. The regression equation is as follows: life satisfaction = 1.436815592 + 0.045915152 (spiritual experiences) + 0.042888274 (integration in congregation). …

The Impact Of Religiosity On Coping Among Lds Adolescents, Matthew P. Roper

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the impact of religiosity on coping in a group of Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) youth. Longitudinal data were gathered from detailed questionnaires administered to 2852 male and female adolescents in 1990 and 1993. Coping was conceptualized as four general dimensions (self-concept, public activities and service, deviance and future plans). Religiosity was also conceptualized multi-dimensionally (religious belief, public religiosity, private religious behavior, and religious experiences). Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the unique effects of each of the dimensions of religiosity on each dimension of coping. It was hypothesized that religiosity was positively …

Oral Performances As Ritual: Animating The Invisible In Mormon Women's Miscarriage Stories, Kristin Leifson Ballif

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is comprised of ten Mormon women's miscarriage stories and it is their stories that are used as the text for my analysis. The purpose of the study is to provide a space for these women to share their experiences and to reveal their cultural values and beliefs. Because the women are all Mormon, there are some distinctive cultural and religious values that are shared within their stories and it is these aspects that are analyzed and discussed within the text.

Women need to be able to share their miscarriage stories so as to alleviate feelings of isolation and …

A Mormon Cultural Study Of Musical Preference, Alden L. Weight

Theses and Dissertations

Music is an important yet relatively unnoticed part of the everyday world almost all of us take for granted. Whether in the car, watching television, shopping, at work or at home, even waking up in the morning or going to sleep at night, and so forth, music surrounds us, soothes us, disturbs us, and occasionally goes so far as to persuade us. Although music plays a significant role in many areas of life, its relationship to society is especially evident in the religious sphere. Therefore, the religious sphere is an ideal place to examine what music does and what it …

A Model Of Delinquency Among Lds Adolescents: The Effect Of Peer Influences, Religiosity, Personality Traits, School Experiences, And Family Characteristics, Janice Garrett

Theses and Dissertations

This study tested a multivariate model, which included peer influences, religiosity, personality traits, school experiences, and family characteristics, in predicting juvenile delinquency. The model compared two samples of youth belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (L.D.S.). A mail questionnaire and three follow-up mailings were sent to 1,078 youth living in the Pacific Northwest and 1,849 youth living in Utah county. The overall response rate for the sample was 63 percent. Extensive measures were used in assessing the variables included in the model. Structural equation modeling (LISREL) was used in the analysis because of its capacity to …

Mormon Women's Sense Of Empowerment, Stace Hucks Christianson

Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on the empowering experiences of LDS women within the patriarchal structure as organized by the LDS church. Women in the LDS church empower themselves by drawing both external and internal resources. The degree of flexibility that leaders and member of the LDS church adopt externally influences the degree of empowerment that LDS women. The more internal factors an LDS woman adopts the greater her internal sense of empowerment.

A Study Of Haitian Mormon Converts Dwelling In New York City: A Cross-Cultural Perspective In Understanding, Interpreting, And Experiencing The Mormon Subculture, Yvon Milien

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the roles played by understanding, interpretation of practices, and experience in Mormon culture when Haitians convert to Mormonism. In relationship to their previous cultural practices, this thesis explores whether Haitian converts develop one of three types of behaviors: discard old practices, retain elements of old practices, or seek to establish a balance between former and new religious practices. In-depth interviews with twelve subjects living in New York City suggest that most active converts discarded their old cultural traditions. This study suggests that only interpretation influences developing types of behavior. However, it was not expected that most converts …