Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Interpersonal Distance In Social Relationships And Mental Health Outcomes In A Glbt Sample, Kristina Mcdougal

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Ample research has been conducted on how heterosexuals distance themselves from gays and lesbians through lack of emotional attachment, job discrimination, and lack of familial support, yet there has been little research on how people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT) view this distancing. To examine the distancing from the point of view of people in a GLBT sample we surveyed 200 GLBT people at the Annual Pride Not Prejudice celebration in Salt Lake City. Participants were asked how they viewed their relationship with their parents, and how they perceived their parents religiosity. Participants also completed the Beck …

Consumption, Time Preference, And The Life Cycle, Michael Charles Bailey

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This paper presents two life-cycle models of consumption implementing novel assumptions about time preference and subjective time. The goal of this paper is to investigate implications of the existence of subjective time to consumption decisions over the life cycle. The first model is a model of 'systematic impatience' and implements the assumption of increasing subjective time by specifying a time dependent rate of time preference upon which the rational consumers in this model maximize lifetime utility. The second model investigates consumer behavior in subjective time, or the subjective sense of the actual passage of time. Consumers in this model maximize …

The Chasm Between Two Parallel Worlds, Brandi Harline

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

In much of the research conducted on military issues, problems are identified years, sometimes decades, before the military publicly acknowledges these concerns; an example of this is sexual assault, which scholars discussed for over thirty years before the military acknowledged the issue. In this paper, I study the value differences between the military leadership and the scholars who study military topics and how these different values may hinder effective communication between the two groups. The method I use in identifying the standards by which the two groups identify problems is content analysis on articles published by the two communities, calculating …

Malnutrition In The Elderly In Long-Term Care Facilities, Cindy L. Pitcher

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

In 2000, there were 17,000 nursing homes in the United States housing about 1.5 million residents over the age of 65. Approximately 75% of long-term residents are women. The average length of stay for residents is 2.5 years, so in essence the nursing home becomes their home. Those who are in these long-term care facilities are generally characterized as frail elderly adults who suffer from a host of chronic and acute diseases and conditions. They are most likely cognitively impaired and have a great number of limitations in their activities of daily living (ADL). In addition, data collected by the …

Difficulties Associated With Stepparenting As Predictors Of Remarital Satisfaction And Adjustment, Aaron I. Anderson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

As a result of high divorce and remarriage rates, stepfamilies have become commonplace in society. Researchers and clinicians have suggested that stepchildren can positively and negatively affect remarriage quality. Despite the increasing literature on stepfamilies, few studies have comparatively researched specific stepparenting difficulties as they affect marital satisfaction. Utilizing a sample of newlyweds, this study examines fourteen stepparenting related issues, as measured by the stepparenting subscale of the Questionnaire for Couples in Stepfamilies, and their relationship to marital satisfaction and adjustment.

Characteristics Of Helping Relationships For Emotional Distress: Older Adults' Perceptions, Alison L. Rencher

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Geriatric depression reduces older adults' quality of life, yet few will seek formal help. Older adults often seek help for emotional distress from informal helpers, which appears to have a therapeutic benefit for them. This qualitative study was designed to investigate older adults' perceptions of helping relationships that they used when faced with emotional difficulties or concerns, characteristics that facilitated their approaching helpers, and what they perceived as helpful in those relationships. This study also looked at older adults ' perceptions of professional mental health practitioners and barriers to seeking help.

Semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted with 8 older adults …

A Comparison Of Cognitive Autonomy In Adolescents From A Residential Treatment Center And A Traditional Public High School, Matthew Laurence Reiser

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which factors influencing cognitive autonomy differed for "identified" and "not identified" troubled adolescents. One hundred and nineteen residential treatment youth aged 14 to 18 and 137 public high school adolescents were compared using the Cognitive Autonomy Self Evaluation (CASE) inventory, which examines five elements of cognitive autonomy including evaluative thinking, voicing opinions, decision making, self-assessing, and comparative validation. Findings reveal that generally cognitive autonomy did not differ according to troubled status. However, ninth-grade females at the traditional public high school rated themselves much higher in evaluative thinking, voicing opinions, …

Kindergarten Teachers' Developmentally Appropriate Beliefs And Practices And Perceived Problems Of Kindergarten Transition, K. Marie Sorenson Mecham

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study examined kindergarten teachers' developmentally appropriate beliefs and practices, and kindergarten teachers' perceived problems of children entering kindergarten. The relationship between kindergarten teachers' beliefs and practices and their perceived problems of children entering kindergarten was studied, as was the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices and their perception of children's successful kindergarten entry.

Participants included kindergarten teachers from eight Utah school districts. Teachers were surveyed using both the Transition Practices, and the Teacher Beliefs and Practices Survey. From these surveys, data were collected on kindergarten teachers' beliefs and practices, and perceptions of problems children may have upon entering kindergarten. …

Marginalia No. 22, Merrill-Cazier Library

Marginalia

Issue Number 22: Spring 2007

A MESSAGE FROM THE Director- Linda Wolcott on our mission and strategic planning.

SECURING OUR FUTURE- Information on USU’s new campaign, “Honoring Tradition, Securing the Future”

INSPIRED BY THE MASTERS: PRESERVATION LIBRARIAN ALSO A FINE ARTIST-The talented Mr. Noel A. Carmack

LATINO VOICES PROJECT-Patrick Williams describes the latest oral history project by Special Collections & Archives

MERRILL-CAZIER LIBRARY STRATEGIC PLAN-The mission; the vision; the values.

THE VAN DER PAS COLLECTION & DIGITAL LIBRARY PROJECT-A gift of precious science books and a grant to preserve it.

LIBRARY DIRECTOR LINDA L. WOLCOTT ANNOUNCES HER RETIREMENT-Effective June 30, …

Taking The Sting Out Of Tax Season: A Reference Department/School Of Accountancy Collaboration, Britt A. Fagerheim

Britt Fagerheim

No abstract provided.

Taking The Sting Out Of Tax Season: A Reference Department/School Of Accountancy Collaboration, Britt A. Fagerheim

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Playing With Daddy: Social Toy Play, Early Head Start, And Developmental Outcomes, Lori A. Roggman, Lisa Bouye, G. A. Cook, K. Christiansen, D. Jones

Human Development and Family Studies Faculty Publications

Research on fathers in Early Head Start (EHS) has provided an opportunity to study fathers from low-income families. We examined father-toddler social toy play in relation to EHS enrollment, fathers' psychosocial well-being, and children's developmental outcomes in a sample of 74 father-toddler dyads. Overall, our results show that father-toddler social toy play was more complex among fathers in an EHS program than among those in a comparison group. Greater complexity in father-toddler social toy play predicted better cognitive and social developmental outcomes for young children, especially in the program group, but it was limited by fathers' psychosocial well-being in the …

Father Involvement In Early Head Start Research Programs, H. H. Raikes, J. A. Summers, Lori A. Roggman

Human Development and Family Studies Faculty Publications

This study examined fathers' participation in Early Head Start programs using quantitative and qualitative data from 326 Early Head Start fathers when children were 36 months of age. About half (49%) of the fathers were involved in at least one program activity. A quarter (26%) of the fathers participated at a higher level, in two or more types of program activities. Fathers participated in parent education programs (17%), group socializations (15%), father-only activities (6%), policy councils and program committees (9%), home visits (32% ever, 17% monthly), and in dropping children off at the Early Head Start center (24% ever, …

Journal-Based Self-Studies Of L1 English/L2 Spanish Speakers Learning L3 Kichwa In Ecuador And L3 Guaraní In Paraguay, Carol Severino, Joshua J. Thoms

Joshua J. Thoms

Both Carol and Joshua, speakers of L1 English and L2 Spanish, were recently granted opportunities to learn two of the most common indigenous languages in South America–Kichwa and Guaraní. We lived with Spanish-dominant bilingual families who spoke the target language (L3) we were studying. We both kept learning journals recording our language learning progress. After highlighting the tradition of journal-based studies of language learning, and reviewing the perspectives on interaction in second language acquisition, we first describe the contexts for bilingualism in Ecuador and Paraguay. Second, we present data from our journals to illustrate how each of our language acquisition …

Haunting Experiences: Ghosts In Contemporary Folklore, Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, Jeannie B. Thomas

All USU Press Publications

Ghosts and the supernatural appear throughout modern culture, in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts. Popular media's commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from what people believe about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Belief and tradition and the popular or commercial nevertheless continually feed off each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from multiple angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously. They …

Religion, Politics, And Sugar: The Mormon Church, The Federal Government, And The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, 1907 To 1921, Matthew C. Godfrey

All USU Press Publications

One famous target of Progressive Era attempts to rein in monopolistic big business was the eastern Sugar Trust. Less known is how federal regulators also tried to break monopoly control over beet sugar in the West by going after the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, a business supported and controlled by the Latter-day Saints church and run by Mormon authorities. As sugar beet agriculture boomed, the Mormon church's involvement led directly to monopolistic practices by Utah-Idaho Sugar and to federal investigations. Church leaders encouraged members, a majority population in much of the intermountain West, to patronize the company exclusively, as suppliers and …

The Dynamics Of Social Capital And Conflict Management In Multiple Resource Regimes: A Case Of The Southwestern Highlands Of Uganda, Pascal C. Sanginga, Rick N. Kamugisha, Andrienne M. Martin

All UNF Research

Increasingly, social capital, defined as shared norms, trust, and the horizontal and vertical social networks that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutually beneficial collective action, is seen as an important asset upon which people rely to manage natural resources and resolve conflicts. This paper uses empirical data from households and community surveys and case studies, to examine the role, strengths, and limits of social capital in managing conflicts over the use and management of natural resources. We inventoried over 700 cases ranging from conflicts between multiple resource users to supra-community conflicts between local communities concerns for better livelihoods and national/international …

Cultural Factors As Co-Determinants Of Participation In River Basin Management, Bert Enserink, Mita Patel, Nicole Kranz, Josefina Maestu

All UNF Research

Finding a place for public participation in the policies and practices of European river basin management planning is a challenge for the authorities in the participating countries and territories. Understanding the relation between national culture, the historical and political differences in the respective countries, and their practical experience with participation is considered important to support the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive. Knowledge and understanding of this relation is important to provide a context and basis from which new participatory practices can be designed and experiences evaluated and to identify conditions necessary for social learning. Within the context of …

Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film As Vernacular Culture, Sharon R. Sherman, Mikel J. Koven

All USU Press Publications

Interest in the conjunctions of film and folklore is stronger and more diverse than ever. Documentaries on folk life and expression remain a vital genre, but scholars such as Sharon Sherman and Mikel Koven also are exploring how folklore elements appear in, and merge with, popular cinema. They look at how movies, a popular culture medium, can as well be both a medium and type of folklore, playing cultural roles and conveying meanings customarily found in other folkloric forms. They thus use the methodology of folklore studies to analyze films made for commercial distribution. The contributors to this book look …

The Meaning Of Folklore, Simon J. Bronner

All USU Press Publications

The essays of Alan Dundes virtually created the meaning of folklore as an American academic discipline. Yet many of them went quickly out of print after their initial publication in far-flung journals. Brought together for the first time in this volume compiled and edited by Simon Bronner, the selection surveys Dundes's major ideas and emphases, and is introduced by Bronner with a thorough analysis of Dundes's long career, his interpretations, and his inestimable contribution to folklore studies.

Madame Chair, Jean Miles Westwood

All USU Press Publications

The late Jean Westwood called herself an unintentional pioneer. She did not actively seek or expect to reach what was arguably the most powerful political position any American woman had ever held, chair of the Democratic National Committee. A Utah national committeewoman who time and again had demonstrated her ability to organize effectively and campaign hard, as well as her devotion to reform, Westwood answered George McGovern's call to lead his presidential campaign. In the dramatic year of 1972, she became the first woman to chair a national political party, McGovern lost in a landslide, Nixon was reelected, and a …

Logan City Curbside Recyclingprogram Phase Iv Report, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith, Sandra Marquart-Pyatt

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Recycling programs in Cache County have undergone several transformations over the past decade. This report concentrates on the most recent program implemented in 2006 and 2007 in selected communities throughout the county. Citizens’ behaviors and attitudes regarding recycling and the curbside program are described in the following.

Logan City Curbsiderecycling Program Phase Iii Results, Sandra Marquart-Pyatt, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith, A. Caplan

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This report summarizes the results of a series of survey research projects examining the attitudes and behaviors of Cache County residents regarding recycling programs in 2005. USU researchers were contacted by the Cache County Service District #1, through the Logan Environmental Department, to update information about household recycling attitudes and behaviors, and to present results to various audiences as part of the long-range county solid waste master planning process.

A Case Against The Federal Marriage Protection Amendment, Nancy Kubasek, Arash Garrossian

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Inra Water Resource Management Research And Educationneeds Assessment Project, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith, Sandra Marquart-Pyatt, C. Harris, A. Lovecraft, E. Shanahan, P. Wanschneider

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Water Resources Research Needs Assessment team received funding in summer 2006 from the Inland Northwest Research Alliance (INRA) Water Resources Steering Committee to conduct a structured needs assessment study. The study was motivated by the desire to allow future INRA research and educational programs to meet better the needs of water resources managers in the five state INRA region.

A Bayesian Examination Of Information And Uncertainty In Contingent Valuation, David M. Aadland, Arthur J. Caplan, Owen R. Phillips

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

A theoretical framework is presented to explain how agents respond to information under uncertainty in contingent valuation surveys. Agents are provided with information signals and referendum prices as part of the elicitation process. Agents use Bayesian updating to revise prior distributions. An information prompt is presented to reduce hypothetical bias. However, we show the interaction between anchoring and the information prompt creates a systematic bias in willingness to pay. We test our hypotheses in an experimental setting where agents are asked to make a hypothetical, voluntary contribution to a public good. Experimental results are consistent with the model.

An Equitable, Efficient, And Implementable Scheme To Control Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Arthur J. Caplan, Emilson C.D. Silva

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

We design an international scheme to control global externalities in which autonomous regions choose their own emissions levels in anticipation of interregional resource transfers implemented by an international agency. This agency follows a proportional equity principle, which preserves the status-quo ratio of regional welfare levels. We show that it is individually rational for each region to participate in the proposed international scheme and that regional environmental authorities choose policies that fully internalize the global externality. Although based on an admittedly ideal scheme, these results are especially noteworthy in light of the call for various forms of transfers in international agreements …

Using Choice Question Formats To Determine Compensable Values: The Case Of A Landfill Sitting Process, Arthur J. Caplan, Therese Grijalva, Douglas Jackson-Smith

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

Siting noxious facilities, such as community landfills, is a challenging problem for local planners who recognize the importance of economic efficiency and equity, political acceptance, and meeting federal regulatory standards. Meeting these criteria requires technical and socio-economic analyses in conjunction with public input. Planners may also recognize that political acceptance requires compensation for the host community, either in the form of monetary or in-kind transfers. Following Breffle and Rowe (2002), we use a “resource-toresource” paired-comparison survey method to estimate compensatory values associated with an in-county landfill for both the host and non-host communities. Our results indicate that while a host-community …

Leftward March: Student Liberalism At The Utah State Agricultural College, Robert Parson

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

The Great Depression and the years leading up to World War II forever changed American society. The debilitating effects of the Depression “produced a profound shaking-up of American Society,” wrote Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1) Economic instability, an evolving national politic, and the growing threat of another world war, all combined to catapult the United States from what it was into what it became. No one was entirely immune. The transformation affected all regions of the country politically and all segments of the population. Utah voters long wedded to conservative ideals, even repudiated the extended Republican incumbencies of Senator Reed …

Distanciation And The Recontextualization Of Space: Finding One’S Way In A Small Western Community, Lisa Gabbert

English Faculty Publications

In the 1990s, the city of McCall, Idaho, and the surrounding region implemented the Rural Addressing System. The system assigned a name to every street and a number to every house and erected visible signage for both. Although a seemingly minor bureaucratic operation, the Rural Addressing System is a concrete example of Anthony Giddens's concept of space distanciation, and as such, it is a significant component of modernity and globalization. By investigating the impact of the Rural Addressing System on this region—particularly on the ways in which people give directions and think about space there—this article sheds light on how …