Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Namoluk Onomatology: Two Centuries Of Personal Naming Practices, Mac Marshall

Pacific Studies

This paper explores the personal naming practices on Namoluk Atoll in the Federated States of Micronesia, with a focus on how these practices reflect and shape individual identity and social change. The study confirms the singularity of personal names on Namoluk, contrasting this with name-recycling systems found in other Oceanic societies. The study highlights the adaptability of naming as a cultural practice and its role in mediating between tradition and modernity.

Naming And Social Life: The Case Of The Pinuyumayan (Puyuma) People In Eastern Taiwan, Wen-Te Chen

Pacific Studies

This study examines the complex relationship between personal names, personhood, and social life among the Pinuyumayan people of eastern Taiwan, contextualizing their practices within broader cross-cultural naming patterns. By examining naming practices throughout the life course, the research demonstrates how naming systems integrate various social domains including kinship, community organization, and gender relations. This analysis reveals how naming practices serve as critical indicators of social development and cultural values in Pinuyumayan society.

Entering God’S Family: The Adoption Of Christian Names In The Early Bunun Presbyterian Church, Eastern Taiwan, Chun-Wei Fang

Pacific Studies

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in eastern Taiwan, this paper reconsiders the Bunun naming system, exploring how the adoption of Christian names among the Bunun reflects not passive cultural assimilation but active engagement with social change. This case study contributes to broader discussions on indigenization, religious conversion, and the role of naming in mediating cultural continuity and change.

“I Am A Grandparent And My Name Is Good”: Status, Food, And Gender Among The Kelabit Of Sarawak, Monica Janowski

Pacific Studies

This study examines the complex address and reference system of the Kelabit people of Central Borneo, focusing on how naming practices reflect and reinforce kinship structures, gender differentiation, and social status. The research analyzes how the elaborate Kelabit naming system, distinct from other Apo Duat groups, emphasizes parental and grandparental roles. The study also demonstrates how the Kelabit system has evolved uniquely while maintaining connections to traditional environmental relationships. This analysis reveals how naming practices serve as key indicators of social organization and cultural identity in Kelabit society.

Vol. 39 No. 1/2 (2016): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US$40.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, and …

Hooking Up, Romantic Relationship Self-Efficacy, And Attitudes Toward Marriage, Jacqueline Bible

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This quantitative study sought to describe general and penetrative hookup behavior among college attending emerging adults aged 18-22, and to understand the relationships between hookup behavior, romantic relationship self-efficacy, and intent to marry. Cognitive behavioral theory viewed through a feminist lens grounded the study. The convenience sample consisted of 38 respondents (32 females, 6 males) from a midsized northeastern university. Respondents were asked to answer an online survey that asked about hookup behaviors, partner types, emotional experiences, feelings of romantic relationship self-efficacy, and intent to marry. Frequencies revealed that respondents prefer to engage in hookups with partners they know and …

The Complicated Process Of Disenfranchised Grief While In College, Daniella Markowski

Senior Honors Projects

In order to demonstrate the importance of understanding and recognizing grief, this research project explores the capacity for young adults within the college setting to experience two negative grief processes: disenfranchised and complicated grieving. In broad terms, disenfranchised grief occurs when society does not recognize the grief a bereaved person is experiencing; complicated grief occurs when the bereaved continues to grieve for a prolonged period of time in which they are unable to adapt to their life. While it can be difficult to define a specific population who is at risk for experiencing these types of grief, society often fails …

The Effect Of Past Institutional Structures On Current Economic Development Levels: The Former French African Colonies, Ana May Jerolamon

Senior Honors Projects

By the early 1960’s, most of the French colonies in Africa had gained independence. Since then, these former colonies have reached economic development levels that vary widely by country. This project will argue that while most of these countries were official colonies for less than one hundred years, the institutions that were created during the colonial period still have an effect on the current economic development of such countries. Since political institutions become intertwined with the culture and structure of a country,

they are extremely hard to modify; therefore, we can expect to find the presence of institutions that are …

Social And Scientific Implications Of Genetic Testing In The Digital Age, Yaruska A. Ordinola

Senior Honors Projects

From Mendel’s law of inheritance in the 19th century through Watson and Crick’s revolutionary observations of the double helix in the 20th century, genetics has been a fascinating and continuing topic of discussion in the field of science (Collins & McKusick, 2001). Major studies like the Human Genome Project (HGP), initiated in 1990 and completed in 2003, provided a starting point from which scientists could more thoroughly investigate the human condition on a genetic level. Arising from this study, personal genomics is considered a blooming field in genetics- in which rapidly developing technological advances are able to provide easier and …

Aesthetic Sport Pressures For Men Of Suicidal Minds, Keilani-Lyn R. Rudderham

Senior Honors Projects

All experiences are unique to every person because each person perceives their surroundings individually. People living with suicidality struggle with the consistent pain which affects their cognition and perception. Pain directly influences how they perceive their experiences and their surroundings. Simultaneously, a person suffering from suicidality must face the stigmas society associates with mental illnesses. Suicide and related mental health concerns are frequently stigmatized and discourage those experiencing it from discussing the pain they feel. They are limited in receiving help as the pain is internalized. Through a creative fiction, first-person narrative account, this project investigates the pressures associated with …

Bleeding Keaney Blue: An Analysis Of Sports Fandom And The Supporters Of Uri Basketball, Lia M. Moceri

Senior Honors Projects

In the United States, sports are so prevalent on the national, state, and local level that researchers assert they have become a major component of everyday life. In fact, millions of Americans consider themselves sports fans. Studying sports fandom offers an interesting insight into the human condition.

This paper begins by looking at sports fans on a psychological level by examining socialization, the process of becoming a sports fan. It also examines the reasons people become fans and the degree to which people identify as a fan. An important psychological aspect when studying sports fans is identity and how a …

Predicting Depression In Older Adults: Community Vs. Nursing Home, Hannah Vitello, Skye Leedahl

Senior Honors Projects

With the population of the United States slowly growing older, the issues surrounding long-term services and supports (LTSS) will become more prevalent. Little research has been done comparing older adults living in nursing homes to older adults living in the community, especially regarding mental health and depression. Depression is a mental illness that affects people emotionally and physically, as well as mentally, which can lead easily into other health complications in the older adult population. This study seeks to determine if factors such as demographics, health, social interaction, and family relationships affect mental health in nursing home residents differently than …

Assessing The Potentiality Of A Counselor-In-Residence Program At The University Of Rhode Island, Sara Atash

Senior Honors Projects

The demand for mental and behavioral health services on college campuse is growing. While current models of health and counseling centers encourage that students seek help, the stigma associated with seeking care for mental and behavioral health issues can often discourage students from doing so. As a result, many are not seeking care when they should or are waiting until their problems have grown severe.

With the hopes of addressing this problem, a new model has come into fruition. The Counselor-In-Residence (CIR) model revolves around placing counseling representatives directly in the residence halls in order to offer more opportunities for …

Relationships Between Social Media Exposure & Levels Of Body Dissatisfaction, Helen Nguyen, Andrea L. Paiva

Senior Honors Projects

The digital age has resulted in major technological inventions leading to great advances; however there are also clear costs. Television allows identical picture images to be broadcasted into millions of homes, the internet is a gateway to seemingly limitless information, and the cell phone is the ultimate connection device. Each of these communication modalities have spread the thinness ideal that is prevalent in Western societies, with the Internet being ridden with pro-eating disorder websites, cell phones providing handheld excess to peer- comparison, and all mediums presenting images of the thin body as ideal. The prevalence of eating disorders is still …

Inequality And Financialization, Oscar C. Soons

Senior Honors Projects

This paper analyzes economic inequality in the United States and makes a connection between rising inequality and “Financialization” since the 1970’s. I provide an overview of how and why income and wealth inequality have changed over time. The increase in inequality since the 1970’s is correlated with an increase in Financialization, measured by a Financialization index that I created. Financialization, defined as the increasing size, power and influence of the financial sector in the economy and politics, has changed the economic and political landscape in the United States in a way that increases economic inequality.

Illustrations Of Child Anxiety, Erica G. O'Connell

Senior Honors Projects

I have found through my experience at The University of Rhode Island that two things are lacking; attention to the arts, and conversation about mental illness. Books are not only used as an educational tool for literacy among children but also as a way to introduce challenging topics. Combining my two majors, Art and Psychology, I aimed to create a real life tool that exposes children to the topic of mental health. The targeted age group for this book is between 4 through 6 years. By introducing this conversation to children at an appropriate level of learning, my hope is …

Examining The Relationship Between Physical And Sexual Abuse And Mental Illnesses Among Female Inmates: Revising The Mental Health Care Process In Prisons, Josie Klepper

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Females are becoming a prominent population within America’s correctional facilities, which has led to incarcerated females increasingly becoming the popular subjects of more recent research. Along with the growing population of female inmates, the rates of sexual and physical victimization reported by incarcerated females is rapidly growing. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the pre-established correlation between mental health diagnoses, and the prior physical and/or sexual abuse of female inmates within the custody of correctional institutions, outline the current treatment process, and devise a revision of the treatment process in order to improve the future of mental health …

Arrest Or Hospitalization? An Examination Of The Relationship Between Psychiatric Symptoms, Traumatic Childhood Experiences, And Socio-Ecological Factors In Forensic Mental Health System Responses To Offender Behavior, Stephanie Mersch, Jill D. Stinson, Megan Quinn

Undergraduate Honors Theses

It has been well documented that Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) lead to unfavorable outcomes in later life, especially with regard to health and psychological outcomes. Recent research has demonstrated the impact of early childhood adversity on the onset of aggression and illegal behavior. However, often those with mental illness diagnoses with comorbid behavioral problems exhibit trajectories that include both arrest and hospitalization. While some are arrested for their criminal behavior, others are hospitalized. This begs the question: are those with mental illness and behavioral problems more likely to be arrested, or hospitalized, for their early behavioral problems? In the current …

Recreating Richard Iii: The Power Of Tudor Propaganda, Heather Alexander

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Because it signified the violent transition from the Plantagenet to Tudor dynasty, the death of King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth’s Field was a monumental event. After five centuries, his skeleton was rediscovered by an archaeological team at a site, formerly the location of the Greyfriars Priory Church. The presentation uses the forensic evidence to examine the extent to which the perceived image of Richard III is the result of Tudor propaganda.

Dance And Well-Being In Older Adult Communities: Exploring Efficacy As A Mediator, Beth M. Mcgowan

Honors Thesis

As the population of older adults expands, it becomes increasingly important to develop effective interventions to ensure high levels of well-being. Previous research in a variety of populations has shown that dance produces broad benefits including improving physical mobility, social relationships, autonomy, and self-image. Given this, the present study attempted to clarify the mechanisms through which dance might lead to these improvements. Specifically, this research examined the role of self-efficacy, or beliefs that one can accomplish certain tasks, have in explaining the psychological benefits of dance. I hypothesized that when dance is a social activity it instills a sense of …

Orange Balance: A Health And Wellness Website For Freshmen Women At Syracuse University, Sarah Santos

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Adjusting to a new lifestyle away from home can be a challenge, especially for students who are moving to college for their first year. Based on my own struggles with maintaining my health and finding my balance with food, fitness, and personal wellness, which I endured when first coming to Syracuse University in the fall of 2012, I have created a health and wellness website designed specifically for first year female students at Syracuse University. Using WordPress to build the online platform, and working with writers, photographers, and an illustrator, I have built a site that discusses topics such as …

Welcoming The Stranger: African Refugees And Israel’S Asylum Regime, David Kimelman

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper will explore the Israeli asylum regime and its development since the state’s inception and will discuss the rationales and motives behind national policy and public perception of asylum seekers. Over the last decade, Israel’s asylum regime has been significantly upgraded to meet the growing needs of the state to manage an unprecedented flow of asylum seekers entering into the country. Upon arriving in Israel, however, asylum seekers have found a state that is reluctant to take them in and a citizenry unwelcoming to outsiders perceived as a divisive “other.” This “otherness” is perceived as a danger to many …

Trail's End Cafe Branding And Design, Morgan Mcmullen

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Trail’s End is a café which is scheduled to open in the first week of June 2016. For my creative capstone project, I developed the café’s identity, as well as designed the logo, materials, and website, among other things needed to get the café ready to open. Being the sole designer working on the identity development of any venture is a challenge, however this also made my tasks perfect for an honors-level capstone.

At Risk: Conflict Resources And The Right To Water In Sub-Saharan Africa, Madeleine Durbin

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper examines the relationship between water and natural resource extraction to expand the understanding of conflict resources to include water stress as a human rights violation. My research question asks how the human right to water can further our conceptualization of conflict resources and conflict risk. If we understand conflict resources broadly as those whose exploitation leads to human rights violations, then any resource extraction resulting in water stress should be considered a conflict resource, as it violates the human right to water and could lead to increased conflict risk. I examine diamonds and coltan as “widely accepted” conflict …

Psychological Reactivity To Dental Images And Sounds, Josue Deya

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Individuals who fear the dentist or have dental phobia, actively avoid routine care and dental procedures, leading to deterioration of their oral health. Consequently, research into possible triggers of dental related anxiety is of interest. The purpose of the current study is to develop a standardized set of images and sounds to use in future cue reactivity studies for a specific population: namely, college students varying in their fear and anxiety based reactions to the dentist and dental procedures. Participants were given questionnaires assessing their personality, oral health behaviors, and dental anxiety. Participants were also asked to assess negative dental …

A Gnawing Problem: Does Rodent Incisor Microwear Record Diet Or Habitat?, Salvatore Samuel Caporale

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Dental microwear has been shown to reflect food preferences and habitat in extant vertebrates, and its analysis has been applied to fossil assemblages to infer paleodiet and paleoenvironment. Such reconstructions are, of course, only as good as the extant baseline used to infer relationships between wear pattern and diet/habitat. This study tests, through dental microwear texture analysis, the potential of modern rodent lower incisors to reveal those relationships, and evaluates the extent to which effects of diet and habitat can be parsed from the signal. Microwear texture profiles were created for individual lower rodent incisors (n=430) using confocal profilometry and …

The Effect Of The Expanded Food And Nutrition Education Program On Participants’ Diet Quality: Does Supermarket Access Matter?, Rachel Ann Spencer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project assesses the effectiveness of the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) within the context of supermarket access. EFNEP is a national community nutrition education program that strives to give participants the tools to live healthier lives. Analysis was performed on participants from 16 Arkansas counties that completed EFNEP during 2013 or 2014. The program outcome is measured in terms of the change in Healthy Eating Index (HEI) as calculated from 24-hour diet recalls at program entry and exit. Supermarket locations were obtained from the USDA Food Nutrition Service’s SNAP Retail Locator and represent the food environment near …

Sex-Related Alcohol Expectancies, Alcohol Consumption, And Risky Sexual Behavior Among African American College Women, Danielle P. Cottonham

Master's Theses

African American college women are experiencing sex-related negative consequences (e.g., contracting sexually transmitted diseases or human immunodeficiency virus, having an unplanned pregnancy) at disproportionate rates in comparison to Caucasian college women. Furthermore, African American college women are likely engaging in risky sexual behaviors (e.g., unprotected anal, vaginal, oral sex) that may be placing them at a greater risk for experiencing sex-related negative consequences. Research suggests that increased alcohol consumption is predictive of more risky sexual behavior among college women. Additionally, sex-related alcohol expectancies, or beliefs about the effects of alcohol on sexual behavior, are positively associated with increased alcohol consumption …

The Dark Triad And Hexaco Model Of Personality In Relational Aggression, Niki M. Knight

Master's Theses

Past research has linked relational aggression (RA) to many forms of psychological maladjustment among children and early adolescents. Although less is known about RA among emerging adults, there is a growing body of research demonstrating a number of adverse correlates. This literature has sparked an interest in examining the role of personality in RA. Most investigations to date have focused on the Five Factor Model; however, the six factor HEXACO model of personality (Ashton et al., 2004) may offer some advantages in studying RA. Moreover, the manipulative and often covert nature of RA among emerging adults has theoretical overlap with …

Pre- And Post-Partum Whistle Production Of A Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus) Mother-Calf Dyad, Audra Elizabeth Ames

Master's Theses

Whistle use pre- and post-partum in an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) mother-calf dyad has rarely been studied. The current study is the first to investigate signature whistle production by the mother pre- and post-partum, as well as whistle use by other members of the social group during calf development, and how exposure to these whistles may affect the calf’s vocal repertoire. Findings showed that the mother increased her rates both pre- and post-delivery, while other group members produced their whistles at decreased rates until the calf’s second week of life. After the calf’s second week, whistle rates of …