Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Anthropomorphism In Aesop's Fables, Nasih Alam

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Generally, Aesop’s The Complete Fables is considered didactic for children. In my paper, I discuss how Aesop represents nonhumans in his fables and how they could negatively affect the psychology of children aged 7-12 if we as parents, teachers and legal guardians do not become conscious of its problematic didactic function. I show that most of the anthropomorphized animals in The Complete Fables have anthropocentric and provide environmentally harmful rhetorics. In order to keep the required length of paper in mind, I have limited myself to five tales from Aesop’s The Complete Fables, to show how and where the rhetoric …

Nabataeans, Dogs And Tuna: Chamber Tomb Faunal Remains And Their Association With Rome And Egypt, Samantha Bostwick

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Empathy And Fairness In Nonhuman Primates: Evolutionary Bases Of Human Morality, Colt Halter

Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology

Darwin offered an evolutionary perspective on the origins of human morality, suggesting that humans share a biological foundation with nonhuman primates. This paper reviews the current literature on moral and prosocial behaviors of nonhuman primates, specifically examining whether nonhuman primates exhibit behaviors that are typical of empathy and fairness. The literature documents that nonhuman primates exhibit empathetic behaviors regarding emotional contagion and sympathetic concern. There is also evidence that nonhuman primates have a sense of fairness, seen in their reciprocal behaviors and aversion to inequity. Taken together, this suggests that there are evolutionary roots of morality, lending empirical support to …

A Blueprint Or Change: How Punk Music In Belfast Affects Activism Today, Hannah Williams, Jacob Hickman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Though art can be found in all walks of life, it lends itself particularly well to the expression of political frustration. During the deeply rooted religious conflict between Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland, commonly referred to as the Troubles, many artists and musicians used their creativity to speak out against the violence of the conflict. Born into a society of religious division and hatred, youths of the 1970s and 1980s often turned to the local punk music movement in order to bridge and speak out against the religious divide. Many believe this was critical to eventual peace in …

Moral Transformation Of Religious Conflict: Believers & Bonfire In Belfast, Northern Ireland, Brinnan Schill, Jacob Hickman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project was to investigate the cultural and historical implications of contemporary religious changes among two case studies of millenarian movements, drawing specifically on ethnographic field research already conducted in a Hmong village in Northern Thailand, and continuing research on conflict transformation among the Protestant and Catholic communities of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Drawing from both written and visual ethnographic methodology, the aim of this project is to use the unique qualities of a visually supplemented narrative to illustrate and explicate how people within these millenarian movements interpret religious conflict as an “enchanted” (Gell 1994) narrative of persecution, …

Nabataean Painted Pottery Wares: Core Vs. Periphery, Shawn Hall, David Johnson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Nabataeans were an ancient civilization contemporary with the Romans who, through trading, where able to exhort influence over a large portion of the Middle East. Their capital of Petra is well-studied many of the cities on the outskirts of the Nabataean kingdom have just recently been studied more in-depth. Hegra, located in the northern part of modern-day Saudi Arabia, is one of such cities located in the south of the Nabataean kingdom. By studying the different motifs found on Nabataean painted pottery found in both Petra and Hegra, we have come to understand the relationship that the capital and …

Archaeometry For The Ancestors: Stable Isotope Analysis Of Skeletal Remains From Huarochirí, Perú, Ridge Anderson, Zachary Chase, Phd

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Huarochirí region of the central coast of Peru has been of utmost importance to Andean anthropologists since the late 1930s discovery of the Huarochirí Manuscript. The manuscript is the only historical document we have that is written in an indigenous Andean language. Consequently, it has been one of the main sources for understanding indigenous Andean lifeways leading up to the Early Colonial period. The first systematic archaeological research in this area commenced in 2010 under the Proyecto Arqueológico Huarochirí-Lurin Alto (PAHLA) directed by Dr. Zachary Chase. So far, the research involved in PAHLA indicates a different story than the …

Book Review: Seeds Of Greatness By Denis Waitley, Jennifer Maynard

Marriott Student Review

Book review of Seeds of Greatness by Denis Waitley, personal anecdotes and summaries of research on the secrets to success in life and in the business world.

Nabataean Course Ware Pottery Chronological Dating System, Jake Hubbert, Dr. Cynthia Finlayson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The course ware pottery created by the ancient Nabataeans of Petra, Jordan is unique and one of the most understudied pottery types from the Hellenistic and Roman eras in the Near East. My research project involved developing an updated seriation organization of these pottery types based on comparative shapes, sizes and other physical attributes, as well as stratigraphic find sites in order to organize these wares into a chronological dating system. The first step of this research project was carried out during the 2017 Petra, Jordan Archaeology Field School with subsequent lab work completed on BYU at the archaeology lab …

“To Bring The Old And To Lead The Young:” Hmong Identity Formation In Transferring Cultural Knowledge Between Generations, Venice Jardine, Dr. Gregory Thompson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

While many theorists in Psychology have proposed various universalistic models for development, specifically ethnic identity development, and while these theories clearly have much to offer in the way scholarship on the topic of identity development, they are severely limited in their scope for the same reason that they are seemingly easy to grasp—they are problematically over-simplified. Human beings seldom fit nicely into stage theories or models, particularly when universally applied to across contexts. Especially when concerned with bi-cultural contexts and identity development, it is not plausible to attempt to reduce these complex human experiences to any one particular paradigm. In …

De Facto Redlining As A Challenge To Integration: A Case Study Of Refugees In The Salt Lake Valley, Clare Willardson, Dr. Gregory Thompson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Approximately 1,200 refugees are resettled in Utah each year, adding to the 50-60,000 refugees (speaking more than 40 languages) accepted here since 1970. Ninety-nine percent of resettled refugees still live in Salt Lake Valley, the majority of whom are initially placed in West Valley and South Salt Lake due to its affordable housing (see Figure 1 and Figure 2 for reference). Upon resettlement, each family is assigned a case worker through their non-profit resettlement agency that enrolls children in a local public school, and mediates for medical, employment, financial, and other concerns that adult refugees experience post-resettlement.

Complimentary Medical Frameworks: Hmong Shamanism In France And Thailand, Madison Harmer, Dr. Jacob Hickman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Current social science literature outside of anthropology has attributed Hmong difficulties adapting to Western health care to their traditional healing practices, claiming that successful integration only occurs as the younger generation discards traditional beliefs (Franzen-Castle & Smith 2013). Ethnographic research conducted in France and Thailand refutes these claims; Hmong of younger and older generations utilize both the state medical system and traditional healing, integrating these systems instead of treating them as ontologically distinct (and thus in competition with each other). Many researchers and medical personnel studying or working with Hmong populations have ignored models of ontological holism because of the …

The Architecture Of Belief: Developing Personal Convictions And Preserving Tradition, Kalli Abbott, Dr. Jacob Hickman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Hmong people are a diasporic, highland ethnic minority group spread throughout Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. Contenders of Christianity have penetrated their communities with religious change to a significant extent. Hmong traditional religious practices include a repertoire of ancestral and spiritual rituals influenced by Taoist and Confucian ritual systems. Challenging these traditional systems today is the influx of conversions to Protestant Christianity in Thailand (about 10% from community surveys). Beginning in the 1960s, the war in Laos began to cause major disruption in the life of Hmong people. Escaping as refugees to Thailand and eventually to …

The Stories We Tell Ourselves: The Influence Of Han And Heung On Korean Culture, Bryce Mangelson, Dr. Greg Thompson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Current scholarship about Korea recognizes the importance that han has on Korean culture. Han is a feeling of melancholy and sadness that stems from constant suppression and opposition. Han is discussed within a historical context of political oppression from foreign countries such as China and Japan.

In my ethnographic study, I found an additional concept called heung that plays a pivotal role in the Korean culture. Heung is the collective energy and joy that motivates celebrations and builds solidarity within the community. Heung is underrepresented in the literature sounding Korean culture even though it is a critical Korean concept. These …

Nabataean Seashell Trade, Emma Collett, Dr. David Johnson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In Petra, Jordan the ancient civilization of the Nabataeans has been studied for hundreds of years. Even with these years of archaeological research and discovery some aspects of the Nabataean culture have not yet been extensively studied. This past Spring term the BYU archaeology department held a field school in Petra. During this field school, Dr. Johnson and I were able to more closely study and gather information on one such aspect of the Nabataean culture not yet studied—Seashell trade.

Converting Gendered Expectations: Emerging Feminist Discourse Among Protestant And Seventh-Day Adventist Hmong, Stephanie Parsons, Dr. Jacob Hickman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

During my second week living in a Hmong village outside of Chiang Mai, I sat down with a middle-aged woman while she was working on her embroidery. She is a Protestant Christian who has been married twice, once to an old culture Hmong man, and currently to a Thai Buddhist. I was surprised to hear that she didn’t follow the Hmong traditional expectation of converting to either of her husband’s belief systems. When I asked her why she never relinquished her faith in Christianity, she said that she was afraid to follow her first husband in old culture traditions. Her …

Ethnographic Perspectives On Female Pornography Use And Disuse, Andrea Rane, Dr. Davide Crandall

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In my research, I explore pornography use among a group of women in Utah, as well as attitudes about pornography held by people in the research location. For both the people in this study who use pornography and those who do not, the concept of pornography as the focus of an addiction exists via people creating meanings about what pornography is, how humans can engage with it, and what pornography will do to you if you use it. This, in turn, cycles back into existing as the context in which some of the women in this study have used pornography. …

Up In Smoke: Conservation And Gender On Mount Kilimanjaro, Garret Nash, Greg Thompson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Initially, this project aimed to examine cultural factors influencing fuel sourcing habits around Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. In 2008, a study conducted by Prof. Jeffery Durrant of the BYU Geography Department found that the Chagga (an ethnic group which lives on the lower slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro) hold a negative opinion towards the National Park and its staff. Specifically, I wanted to know if giving locals an opportunity to experience the park as tourists would change these perceptions and behavior when it came to conservation. However, as research progressed, it became clear that there were deeply seeded issues related to gender …

Transnationalism And Civic Engagement: An Ethnographic Study Of The Hmong Diaspora In France, Jacob Hickman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Hmong are an ethnic minority group from southeast Asia who were displaced as refugees after the Second Indochina War. Before the war, Hmong lived in kinship-based, highland, semi-nomadic, subsistence-based farming communities. In these traditional villages, Hmong developed various means of social mediation and problem solving based on hierarchies of kinship and village or clan leadership. As they have been displaced to locations like the United States and France, however, legal structures of these new communities have challenged traditional structures of authority.

Cerebral Lateralization Of Second Language, Emily Peterson, Gregory A. Thompson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

It has been generally accepted that language shows left-hemisphere dominance in right-handed monolinguals. In contrast, current models of L2 lateralization reveal no such consensus. Some studies (Galloway and Scarcella 1982; Gordon and Zatorre 1981; Paradis 1992) have either found no evidence supporting increased right hemisphere involvement in L2 processing or indicated that bilinguals’ L2 is not any more bilaterally organized than their L1. Other studies (Ke 1992; Hoosain and Shiu 1989; Jia et. al. 2013) have shown the opposite, finding that the L2 is significantly less left-lateralized. Still other studies have suggested that there is simply too much inter-individual variation …

Reconstructing Prehistoric Diets Of Desert People Through Dental Calculus, Michael T. Searcy

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In 2014 I was awarded a Mentoring Environment Grant by ORCA to examine microfossils embedded in the dental calculus (tartar) of individuals who were found during excavations in and around the site of Paquimé, which dates to the thirteenth century A.D. This ancient city is located in the Chihuahuan desert in modern-day Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico. Over the last two years, I have been able to involve students in the extraction, processing, publishing, and presentation of the results of this analysis. While the research is ongoing, preliminary results have positively identified several fascinating foods that were consumed by the ancient …

Somos Machistas: Paraguayan Perceptions On Machismo, Rachel Schwartz, Greg Thompson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Throughout this paper I will argue that the actual real lives and behaviors of Paraguayan men are in contradiction to the discourse of Paraguayans about Paraguayan men. Paraguayans, through their discourse of machismo, have created an ideal type of machismo with carefully constructed categories which defines and describes men’s perceived behaviors. However, throughout the course of my study I found that there was not one Paraguayan man in Asunción who fully inhabited the categories of the ideal machista in Paraguayan society. This paper describes what machismo is in actual Paraguayan society and what the current perceptions of machismo are.

From Master To Pastor: Conversion, Continuity, And Change In Hills Of Vietnam:, Danny Cardoza, Jacob Hickman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The deceased was damned to hell and there was nothing to be done about it. Of this, Fong was quite sure. It was surprising to hear such a simple pronouncement, which rendered the typically complicated set of Hmong funerary rites—whether ‘traditional’ or Christian—effectively useless.

We met Fong¹ in the summer of 2015 in a small Hmong hamlet not far Sapa, a town in the mountains of the northern reaches of Vietnam. Fong was the pastor of his small village, a group of Christians that converted through the missionary efforts of covert foreign missionaries about ten years ago. Fong took …

Research And Conservation Of Peruvian Textiles, Taralea Forster, Paul Stavast

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In 2014, a collection of pre-Columbian Andean textiles was acquired by BYU’s Museum of Peoples and Cultures. Prior to their arrival at the museum, the textiles had been held in poor storage conditions. They had been stored with acidic packing materials in a building with no temperature or humidity control, and as a result had begun to deteriorate.

Additive Schooling: Understanding Latino Education In A South Provo Elementary School, Hailey Leavitt, Gregory Thompson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My research was a case study of an elementary school in South Provo – Franklin Elementary, which focuses on two, second grade classrooms and the homes of six Latino second grade students. It focused on the similarities and differences found between home and school environments and how they shaped the educational experience of these six students. To do this, I examined what specific Latino additive schooling practices are being implemented in Franklin Elementary.

Transforming Marginality: Redefining Hmong Ethnic Identity Through Development In Sapa, Vietnam, Mary Cook, Jacob Hickman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In addition to a booming tourist industry, Sapa, Vietnam is home to a number of development organizations seeking to improve the livelihoods of ethnic minorities in the region. One Hmong woman, whom I will call Maiv, started one of the first indigenous educational development programs in Sapa- ‘by Hmong people for Hmong people,’ as she describes it. In short, the organization boards ethnic minority youths (mostly Hmong) closer to a local school so they can receive an education. Maiv’s organization also provides jobs for women by running a trekking business, a café, and a handicraft shop.

Morality Among The Hmog, Eric Austin Gillett, Jacob Hickman

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I have presented my findings at three conferences: Hmong Studies Consortium in Madison, Wisconsin (April 6, 2015), Society for the Anthropology of Religion in San Diego, California (April 12, 2015), and the American Anthropological Association in Denver, Colorado (November 18-22, 2015). I am preparing a journal article to submit for publication in the Journal of Vietnamese Studies. I will also be using research data to complete my senior thesis, honors thesis, and applications for graduate school.

Mexican American Families, Nicole Rose, Dr. Greg Thompson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Researchers define familismo as a “strong identification with the family” (Triandis, Marin, Betancourt, Lisansky, & Chang, 1982). Sabogal et al. said that “perceived support from family,” “family obligations,” and third, using family as cultural “referents” are important parts of familismo(Sabogal, Marín, Otero-Sabogal, Marín, & Perez-Stable, 1987). All researchers seem to have an underlying assumption that familismo-style relationships are phenomena that occur between blood-relation (Sabogal et al., 1987)(Steidel & Contreras, 2003)(Triandis et al., 1982)(Davila, Reifsnider, & Pecina, 2011). I argue that Mexican kinship is not defined simply by blood relations and that a kin group can be formed through reciprocal relationships. …

Cultural Compromises: Effects And Perceptions Of Formal Education Among The Himba Of Namibia, Jessica Andrus, Greg Thompson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Himba of Namibia have only recently been introduced to formal education within the past 20 years. Previously, formal education was not as readily available to them. This has led to a major cultural shift among the Himba. Traditionally, the Himba do not count, read, or speak English, but formal education is changing that. Through an ethnographic study in Otutati, Namibia, I found that the reasons the Himba are more positive towards education is because they have found ways to reconcile the traditional culture and formal education, enjoying the benefits of both lifestyles.

The Byu Ad‐Deir Monument And Plateau Project, Josie Newbold, Dr. Cynthia Finlayson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Petra, Jordan is famous for being the city carved out of red sandstone cliffs. The builders of Petra were the Nabataeans, a people believed to be nomadic at one point in time, who settled in a desert and created a vast empire. They were renowned for their canals and water control systems. However, this city fell into ruins and was abandoned sometime after in earthquake in 749 AD. As part of the project that I am working on, I travelled to Petra, Jordan along with a team of archaeologists and several geology professors in order to study a seep of …