Both philosophical ethics and moral psychology have examined the differences between deontological and utilitarian beliefs. Deontologists care more about the action itself than the consequences of the action, so they may be more emotionally reactive to an immoral action even if it did not yield negative results. Utilitarians care more about the consequences of an action than the action itself, so they may be less emotionally reactive to an immoral action if it did not yield negative results. However, there are often discrepancies between one’s beliefs and how they would emotionally react to moral transgressions. In this online study, the researcher aims to see if there is a difference between participants’ affective response to moral transgressions when asked to label their ethical beliefs beforehand. These moral transgressions will be imaginary scenarios where no negative consequences occur. The researcher predicts that there will be a greater difference in affective responses to moral transgressions between deontologists and utilitarians when they are asked to label their beliefs beforehand compared to the participants in the control group who will not be asked to label their beliefs.

Stress is a consistently observed and well-researched aspect of the collegiate experience (Misra & Castillo, 2004; Misra & McKean, 2000; Ross et al., 1999). However, as noted by researchers such as Struthers et al. (2000) and Misra and McKean (2000) it is the perception of stressful events as negative in excessive quantities that can lead to unhealthy physiological and psychological ramifications as well as impact academic performance (Khan et al., 2013; Struthers et. al, 2000). Meanwhile, sleep quality and social support have both been researched showing their importance for physiological, psychological and emotional health (Perry et al., 2013; Hefner & Eisenberg, 2009; Hale et al., 2005).

The purpose of this research project is to study the presence of stress within undergraduate students, considering the moderators of sleep quality and social support. This study looks to expand current research by focusing specifically on the differences between prehealthcare and non-prehealthcare undergraduate populations. Participants were undergraduate students at a small, private, Christian university in southeast Tennessee and obtained access to an electronic survey via email. The survey included general and specific demographic questions as well as the Perceived Stress Scale (10-item), the Sleep Quality Scale (28-item), and the PERMA-Profiler (23-item).

Humans are the only creatures on this planet to have the ability to blush, resulting in some researchers to aim at discovering the nature of blushing. Psychologists have found that individuals tend to blush the more people they are around, if they are interacting with the opposite gender, or with a romantic partner (Ann Het Rot & De Jong, 2015). Dijk, De Jong, and Peters (2009) learned that an individual’s blushing indicated judgment of the participant in the situation. Due to the connection found in individuals who are more aware of judgment from their surroundings towards blushing, I predict that in a systematic study, there will be a difference in individuals that are judgmental and individuals who are not judgmental in blushing when placed under a scenario of embarrassment with several people of the opposite sex. In the current study, approximately 80 undergraduate students are being recruited to participate in this study from a small liberal arts college campus in the southeast. The researcher will use a FLIR ONE Gen 3, a thermal camera connected to a mobile phone, to obtain the participant’s facial temperature to measure blushing before and during the task. The researcher will ask each participant to give an impromptu two-minute speech on a random topic for a panel of judges to conduct the Trier Stress Task. The panel, however, will be a “livestream” of prerecorded confederates (Bradner & Mark, 2002; Kraemer, 2013; Steptoe, Steed, Rovira & Rae, 2010). During the experiment, the participants will be asked to report blushing in real time if they recognize they are experiencing it.

Considerable research has been conducted to examine the impact of confronting white privilege on racial attitudes. However, there has been limited research conducted to examine how racial affect is impacted when white privilege is being confronted. For this online study, the researchers will examine this area to address the gap in research. The researchers will exclusively recruit participants who identify as white or Caucasian given the nature of the study. There will be three conditions for this experiment: white privilege (experimental condition #1), white disadvantage (experimental condition #2), and a race-irrelevant topic (control condition). Each condition will be asked to reflect on each topic through the use of a writing prompt. The researchers predict that there will be a greater presence of racial affect and racial attitudes for those who were asked to reflect on their white privilege compared to those who were asked to reflect on white disadvantage or a race-irrelevant topic. The researchers also predict that there will be correlations between the participants’ racial affect and attitudes to their self-perceived white identity, conservatism, and religious ideology.

The purpose of this study is to further understand how emphasizing utility of affect influences an individual’s value of the emotion (Chim, Hogan, Fung, & Tsai, 2017; Netzer, Igra, Anan, & Tamir, 2015). Particularly, the researchers are interested in the relationship between the utility of an emotion emphasized through benefits attained through experiencing the emotion. Jiang, Fung, Sims, Tsai, & Zhang (2016) conducted a study that assessed the value of high arousal positive affect (HAP) and low arousal positive affect (LAP) when individuals were told about healthcare providers’ values in patient care. Similarly, this study would like to replicate the methods used in this research, with a new approach. The researchers are interested in assessing if the utility of high arousal negative affect (HAN) and low arousal negative affect (LAN) would change participants’ value of the emotions when they experience a positive outcome in engaging in those emotions (Tamir, 2009; Tamir, & Ford, 2012). Additionally, the researchers are interested in learning if highlighting the utility of HAN and LAN would cause individuals to approach that same emotion in a similar situation again (Ford & Tamir, 2012; Luong, Wrzus, Wagner, & Riediger, 2016; Tamir, Bigman, Rhodes, Salerno & Schreier, 2015). Participants will complete an online survey, in which they will respond to the Affect Valuation Index (AVI) and the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). Participants will then view one of two websites that emphasize utility of either HAN or LAN, followed by the AVI, additional scales, and debriefing.

In this study, my partner and I hope to explore participant responses on the topic of human mortality, as well as to review past examinations that inform our own research. We specifically plan to isolate our participants into groups based on their age and examine their perspective planning, individual perception, and social attitude regarding death. Our presentation will be a poster reflecting our findings from previous and conducted surveys on this age gap and use our collected data to determine which group is more accepting of death.

Persuasive techniques are used every single day to convince people to act a certain way or believe certain things. Most persuasive techniques, such as priming and subliminal messaging, are subconscious techniques that go unchecked. Most people are unaware that they are even being influenced. The proposed study seeks to expand the research on priming in hopes of subconsciously influencing our participant’s choices. Participants will be primed to subconsciously prefer a giraffe when presented with a choice between three different animals: a giraffe, a zebra, or an elephant. Participants will be asked to choose one, and respond to a writing assessment. However, before the participants receive the writing prompt, they will be asked to proof-read a children’s fable that has obvious mistakes throughout it. The mistakes fall into three categories: letters that are bolded when they should not be, letters that are italicized when they should not be, and letters that are capitalized when they should not be. Each of the error groups as well as the first letter of every paragraph spell out the word “giraffe” down the page. The results of this study will be useful in understanding how subconscious persuasion affects the perception of free choice.

Research suggests that nearly everyone will experience adversity at some point, yet not everyone has the resilience to respond to this adversity in a positive way (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013). One variable with a significant impact on one’s resilience is self-perception of social resources (Ungar, 2015). Past research indicates that in order for an individual to experience resilience in the face of adversity, they must perceive their social resources to be greater than their adversity (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004). The current study was aimed at measuring the impact that one’s self-perception of social resources has on their resilience. For this study, pre-screen data was collected using the Brief Resilience Scale (Smith et al., 2008) and the Multi-dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley, 1988) prior to arrival to the research lab. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of two groups: the negative group or the positive group. Participants in the negative group responded to a writing prompt in which they were to write about a personal adverse experience when they had no social resources to help them. Participants in the positive group responded to a writing prompt in which they were to write about a personal adverse experience when their social resources helped them. This was followed by the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003) as well as the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List. The goal of this study was to measure resilience and perceived social resources to find possible correlations between the two.

By understanding the motivation behind love, one can begin to explore how the choice of love’s object is made – explaining what may be colloquially described as “the X-factor.” The self-expansion model attempts to do just that. Under the assumption that there is a basic motivation for people to increase their self-efficacy, the model posits that a common, and successful way one seeks to do this is by engaging in close relationships (i.e. romantic relationships). By engaging in a close relationship, the self includes the other in their perception of self – meaning the other’s resources, perceptions, and identities are now identified as if they are one’s own – which consequently helps the self reach goals (i.e. increase self-efficacy). Trying to satisfy the logic of the self-expansion model, this study hypothesizes that the self is most attracted to an other who is perceived to be most similar to the idealized version of the self. Participants who are currently engaged in a romantic relationship will complete an online survey comprising of characteristic measures (Gill & Swann, 2004) for actual-self, idealized self, and other, the Self-Expansion Questionnaire (Lewandowski & Aron, 2002), the Inclusion of Other in Self scale (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992), the Passionate Love Scale (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986), Ten-Item Personality Inventory (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003), perceived similarity measures (Sprecher, 2013), the nature and length of the relationship, and general demographic questions.

Relationships between nature and positive emotions have been shown across various past studies. This study aims to once again analyze the relationships via self-report survey by assessing nature value, nature exposure, and nature relatedness as contributors to positive emotion. Nature value will be scored using the Two Major Environmental Value scale (2-MEV) and Appreciation of Nature (APR) scale. A scale measuring engagement in different activities in nature as well as frequency of engagement in those activities will be used to measure nature exposure. Nature value and nature exposure will then be correlated with nature relatedness (measured via Nature Relatedness scale). Positive emotions felt on a general basis will be measured using the PANAS with the added component of Awe (scored separately). It is hypothesized that individuals with higher self-reported scores in nature values and exposure will also report higher scores in nature relatedness. Additionally, it is hypothesized that nature relatedness will be positively correlated with higher self-reported positive emotions. Lastly, it is hypothesized that greater engagement in nature and higher nature relatedness will have a strong, positive correlation with experience of Awe. Based on its results, this study intends to provide applicational information in the context of leveraging nature to elicit positive emotions. This could be particularly useful given the understood benefits of positive emotions such as providing enduring personal resources and a broadened attentional scope.

The role of emotion in vote choice has become a popular topic in political psychology. Specifically, the Affective Intelligence (AI) theory has outlined three emotions that indirectly influence an individual's political decision-making: enthusiasm, anger, and anxiety. AI suggests that individuals are more likely to fall back on their political affiliation when they experience feelings of anger in politics, while individuals that experience anxiety are more likely to make thoughtful decisions specific to candidates’ personal qualities and policy preferences. This project will be a replication of two previous studies, Burden and Klofstad (2005) and Neely (2007). Their projects tested affect and vote choice, and found a significant effect of national anxiety on political affiliation. Similar to the national sense of anxiety experienced in 2001 after the terrorist attacks Burden and Klofstad (2005) found, the nation is now facing anxiety due to the pandemic surrounding the COVID-19 virus. This project will focus specifically on the relationship of anxiety amid the COVID-19 virus and political affiliation. Participants will take a replicated survey detailing political affiliation, candidate preferences, and emotions. The responses will be analyzed in hopes of finding a relationship between anxiety and political affiliation. This project could be of great use to political candidates in assessing campaign strategies for upcoming elections in the midst of national fear.

All participants will be pre-screened for their self-compassion using the Self-Compassion Scale (Neff, 2003), personality traits using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003) and self-esteem using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). During the study, participants will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: self-compassion, self-esteem, or true-neutral. The first two conditions will be manipulated through the use of writing prompts (written by hand) used in past research (Breines & Chen, 2012). The participants in the true-neutral condition will not partake in the manipulation. After priming each condition with the writing prompt, the participants will self-report their arousal, valence and motivation as a manipulation check. All self-reports will be done using a 1-7 Likert Scale (e.g. 1 is calm whereas 7 is excited for arousal self-report). Following the manipulation check, they will engage in the Category Switch Task (Freidman et al., 2008), which will be modified to measure extrinsic motivation through a game that will ensure participant failure. Reaction times will be assessed to eliminate the need for self-report. Following the game, participants will complete the SCS and RSES again to act as a manipulation check. When participants are completing the self-assessments, they will have a skin conductive response (SCR) put on as a bogus pipeline and be told it is a type of lie detector in order to achieve more honest responses. Intrinsic motivation will be assessed using the Situational Motivation Scale (SIMS) (Guay, Vallerand & Blanchard, 2000). The SIMS is designed to assess the constructs of intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, external regulation, and amotivation (E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, 1985, 1991) in field and laboratory settings. The SIMS represents a brief and versatile self-report measure of situational intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, external regulation, and amotivation. Additionally, arousal, valence and motivation will be assessed once again in the exact same way before participating in the Category Switch Task.

It is often believed that environmental well-being and personal quality of life are at odds. American consumerism enforces the idea that constant consumption and purchasing, though damaging to the environment, will lead to increased life satisfaction and overall well-being. However, research suggests that environmental well-being and personal well-being can feed into each other, instead of being mutually exclusive (Brown & Kasser, 2005). There is accumulating evidence supporting that sustainable consumption is associated with higher life satisfaction (Xiao & Li, 2011). This correlation could add a new perspective to the existing literature on the association between prosocial behavior and well-being. This study aims to investigate the relationship between sustainable consumption and life satisfaction through surveying a sample of college students. For applicational purposes, this study seeks to further understand how making environmentally conscious choices can come to the aid of both environmental and personal well-being.

The purpose of this research is to debunk the myth that autistics are antisocial. According to Jaswal et al. (2019) findings, autistic people do desire to socialize but the manifestation of their desire is not “typical”. However, their unconventional initiations to socialize do not mean they are antisocial. The sample size of this survey research will consist of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder as they will bolster the research findings. Historically, autism experts see autistic people as a broken population that needs to be fixed, or worse eradicated. It is unjust to just see the autistics as a subject to be studied and not included in the studies. The benefits of this research could lead the change in paradigm shift, increase inclusion, and decrease ostracization or discrimination of the neurodivergent population.

Rumination is defined as a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy characterized by intrusive thoughts about a negative impactful event that has happened to an individual in the past. Rumination can be subdivided into two types: trait-rumination, and state-rumination. The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent state-rumination dominates executive cognitive functions through a depletion account lens. Though there are many contradicting findings regarding the effects of rumination on executive resources, researchers typically attempt to attribute both trait and state-rumination to it. This study focuses exclusively on state-rumination, completely independent of trait-rumination. One common variable that uniquely interacts with state-rumination is whether an individual is dysphoric or not. The study at hand will induce state-rumination within the experimental group, and then participants will be asked to complete a Stroop task while being timed. The time taken to complete the task and accuracy of the task will be compared between groups and statically evaluated. The hypothesis is that individuals in the experimental group—particularly dysphoric individuals, will take longer to complete the task than the control group due to limited cognitive executive functions.

The PERMA model (Seligman, 2012) defines a holistically well person as possessing positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. One’s overall well-being has been reported to produce a positive relationship when measured alongside religion (Cohen, 2002; Francis, Tekke, & Robbins, 2016; Myers, 2008). In the current study, 103 participants responded to a survey via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTURK). The survey assessed participants’ flourishing and religiosity using the 23-item PERMA-Profiler and the Gorsuch Intrinsic/Extrinsic Religiosity Scale. The researcher concluded intrinsic religiosity was related to higher levels of overall well-being. The current study supports past research of religiosity and well-being as religion contributing to one’s overall sense of well-being.

Postsecondary educational systems have been developing ways to engage students in the classroom. Current research shows significant variables that predict academic success through engagement. However, there is a scant resources to explain the experiences of student engagement in small Christian liberal arts universities. The purpose of this research is to test the theory of student engagement in a small Christian liberal arts university. The significance of this research is to see if student engagement is more consistent across small Christian liberal arts universities in southeast Tennessee just as they have been in other areas of education over the last few decades as research has been done. Using the annual national student engagement survey (NSSE) data, we found that there are students in a Christian liberal arts institution that are likely to have significant relationships with engagement through academic challenges, learning with peers, experiences with their faculty, and their campus environment.

Sex trafficking is an issue that is influencing and impacting lives globally. To put one specific definition on the term sex trafficking is difficult, and scholars or practitioners have yet to agree on what would be considered the true definition. While there is a lot of research and studies about sex trafficking and who the victims are, studies on the characteristics of perpetrators are not readily available. To fully understand sex trafficking, it is vital to recognize the people exploiting men and women for sex. Questions such as, where do these people come from, are they generally male or female, and what is their economic status, are all questions that must be asked in order to understand the people who are contributing to the increase of the sex trafficking industry.This study seeks to test the theory of acquaintance stranger victimization. Using a cluster of data of more than 56,000 cases from generated by Poloaris Institute, this research found out that there are significant differences of sexual exploitation techniques applied to acquaintances than those who are strangers.

Given the ever-growing threat and violence experienced by those who are currently living in Central America, paired with xenophobic ideologies toward refugees and asylum seekers in the United States, there is a need for research into the levels of ethnocentrism within the American public and willingness to engage in efforts to support the human rights of asylum seekers. There is a wide range of opinions and beliefs held by Americans on who has the authority to control immigration and what policies should be in place to do so. However, current perceptions of Americans about President Trump’s policies are perceived to be divisive. Such divisiveness, however, has never studied scientifically. By framing the asylum seekers’ situation as a “societal problem,” adjudicators undermined the applicants because no one group is recognizable as distinct (Matter of M-E-V-G,2014, p. 232). As such they could not be uniquely targeted, and “[a]sylum generally is not available to victims of civil strife, unless they are singled out on account of a protected ground” (p. 251). Thus, casting everyone as equally affected by gang violence enabled adjudicators to deny the possibility of being singled out. This research aims to gain insight into the sociological processes that are shaped, being shaped by, and impacting contemporary U.S. society during this immigration crisis. The purpose of this research is to explore American perception under President Trump’s Administration regarding immigration and the policies placed to control the influx of migrants along the southern border.

In 2000 the United States Congress passed the “Victims of Violence and Trafficking Protection Act” (PLAW-106publ386.pdf, n.d.) which defined sex trafficking, under the federal law, as “migration achieved through force or deception for the purpose of coerced prostitution or sex slavery”. To continue, sex trafficking has come to mean more than coerced prostitution and has come to be a massive problem domestically and internationally, and includes the exploitation of humans, for forced or coerced sexual acts (Deshpande & Nour, 2013). Annually, there are about 800,000 persons trafficked across international borders, with eighty percent of this number being women and children, and nearly half being minors (Dovydaitis, 2010). In addition, what is known as the global sex trade is the fastest growing form of commerce that exists today, with a profit of nearly 32$ billion annually (Feingold, 2005), and the victims of this trade acquire many phycological and physical health conditions, as well as difficulty in one’s social environment (Deshpande & Nour, 2013). “In the United States, the most common form of domestic sex trafficking is violent pimp-controlled prostitution” (Barnard, 2014).

However, a lot of the information, academic articles, and other such things that people read on the internet about sex trafficking are often cluttered with emotionally charged statements, bold uneducated claim, and opinions, therefore causing them to lack information using statistics, and also lack global information. Also, much information and statistics one may find is often lacking in global trends. The purpose of this essay or research is to provide the global statistics of the sex trafficking industry and to provide definitions of sex trafficking, important information, and to examine what has happened in this field and ways in which to combine the information that exists on the subject. This research explores the current global trends on sex trafficking and the various variables that influence the industry.

Refugees are people referred to as being forced to leave their home countries and find safety beyond its borders (“The Global Refugee Crisis,” 2019a). “There are also millions of stateless people, who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment, and freedom of movement” (“Refugees,” 2015). The access to educational attainment and access to college are challenging for refugees (“Education,” n.d.).

In the labor market, the questions are asked whether refugees are affected differently than native-born workers during cycles of boom and bust, policymaking of immigration levels are competitive, immigrants bring skills, and impacts of immigration in workplaces (“Employment & the Economy,” n.d.). “Humanitarian protection, whether for refugees, asylum seekers, or internally displaced persons (IDPs), represents a key policy area for many major immigrants-receiving countries as well as nations bordering locations where war, political upheaval, or natural disaster have disrupted daily life” (“Refugee & Asylum Policy,” n.d.).

However, there is a lack of knowledge of how current refugees coming to the United States are settling. Since Trump has been president, the number of refugees has decreased (NW et al., n.d.). “Historically, the total number of refugees coming to the U.S has fluctuated with global events and U.S. priorities” (NW et al., n.d.). Many immigration researchers disagree with the issues of what is happening with refugees. Disagreement areas include recent arrivals are less skilled than earlier arrivals, socioeconomic assimilation has slowed down over the past years, and does social and economic impact immigration in negative or positive ways (Read "Statistics on U.S. Immigration, n.d.).

The purpose of this research is to test the theory of assimilation on refugees settling in the United States. “Important concern in immigration research involves the effects of immigration and assimilation on health, education, and social programs, particularly in areas of high immigration concentration” (Read "Statistics on U.S. Immigration, n.d.). “Today’s immigration is overwhelmingly composed of newcomers from Asia and Latin America, areas with significantly different languages and cultures than those of previous European immigrants in the late 1800s and earlier decades of the 1900s” (Read "Statistics on U.S. Immigration, n.d.). Economic inequality is a serious deficiency in the area of immigration (Read "Statistics on U.S. Immigration, n.d.). “Although the experiences of European groups coming to the United States in the early-20th century suggest that full assimilation generally occurs within three to four generations, no fixed timetable governs completion of the process [with the current immigrants]” (Bean, 2006).

Sexual assaults on college campuses in the United States has become a problem of epidemic proportions. Statistically, one in every five female students in America will have been a victim of sexual assault during their time in college (Kerner, Kerner, & Herring, 2017). In recent years there have been various stories in the news highlighting the problem of campus rape, such as the case of Stanford University athlete Brock Turner who raped a fellow student on Stanford’s campus while she was unconscious (Molinet, 2015), and Ian Milaski, a 21 year old student at the University of Florida, who allegedely sexually assaulted a fellow student but was released because he was a “high achieving student” (REILLY, 2019). This presentation attempts to describe and assess the atmosphere on college campuses regarding sexual assault and its effects on students. The research portion will consist of a review of the campus safety and security reporting of 110 colleges in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities between 2017-2019. In addition, a group of students at a mid-size Christian Pentecostal college in Southeastern Tennessee will be surveyed on their attitudes toward sexual violence and rape myth acceptance using the standardized Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale. Finally, a self report survey of sexual assault victimization will be distributed and compared agaisnt the official sexual assault reports made by campus safety offices to see if there is a deficiency in reporting rates.

Using the racial bias theory, this present study examines how minorities perceives white police officers in various cities in the United States. As presented by the news media there seems to be a great gap between the treatment of minorities versus white police officers. However, what is lacking in literature is empirical studies on how minorities in general feel about white police officers. Similarly, what aspects of policing towards minorities is likely to impact such perception. The media presents that white officers are specifically targeting minorities. The purpose of this research is to find if there is a direct relationship of perceptions of racial bias from minorities and the different elements of policing. By examining the Police Public Contact Survey of 2011, the research shows that variables of performance, trustworthiness and fairness significant impact the degree of perception of minorities with White officers.

Studies of the role of media in impacting political discourse remains to be premature. More so, studies tend to treat the society as homogenous embodiment without looking at the effect of racial dynamics and the various socio-demographics variations on what informs a group.

The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of social media in the development of perception of President Donald Trump current political activities and ethical narratives. More so, this paper includes the layering of various socio demographics variables on their social media uses. This research all looks at the different types of social platforms political figures use to communicate with their audience. For example, trump uses twitter significantly to express his ideas and statement to audience with similar viewpoint and similar religious affiliation. Many of all social platforms are in relation of the improvement of technology.

This research is important because it provides a counter to the “fake news” phenomenon and establishes a different space where information is being generated. Second, intersection of politics, social media, and race, gender and class studies have never been attempted before.

Media heavily influences how the public views child abuse, and correct framing of child abuse in popular media, such as Disney films, can help the general public fight back in both the personal and public realms. Although Disney films have been examined and criticized for poor framing of depictions of child abuse and maltreatment, there has not been a comprehensive look on how Disney has framed child abuse over time, and the literature is not completely up to date on this issue. This purpose of this study is to examine how depictions of child abuse have changed and developed over time while looking critically at how the abuse is framed in the context of the story. For methodology, one randomly selected film will be examined from each decade since 1937 for depictions of child abuse according to pre-determined definitions laid out by psychologists and the framing in song lyrics of each film will be analyzed and compared for similarities and differences. This study found that Disney is severely lacking in accurate framing of child abuse across decades. The films failed to identify instances of child abuse as abuse, did not show hardly any intervention techniques, and did not use realistic portrayals of abuse. However, as awareness for child abuse rose, the films were less likely to make victims to punchline of jokes, completely dismiss their experiences, and might include some vague illusions to the actions of perpetrators being “bad.”

Adoption is a common practice that is utilized all around the world[CY1] [CY2] . The goal is to provide children with a loving and caring family, and the truth is that the number of children being adopted is declining[CY3] According to the Library of Congress, adoption “in the United States is for the most part governed by state laws, both federal constitutional principles and limited federal statutes may have some influence” (Acosta, 2013). Some criteria that is common in adoption law across states include “the complete vesting of parental rights with the adoptive parents, the requirement of consent, the best interests of the child standard, the confidential nature of adoption proceedings, and the permanent nature of adoption” (Acosta, 2013). According to Creating a Family, the total number of adoptions in the United States in the 2007 was 133,737, and in 2014 the number fell to 110,373. “Domestic infant adoptions in the US has increased very slightly from 18,078 in 2007 to 18,329 in 2014”. (Davenport, 2018). The decrease in adoption internationally and domestically has spawned an increased need for children to be provided with adequate homes. Looking at Davenport’s reporting’s of the various outlets for adopting, the cost, the number of children that are being adopted, and the length of time that the process takes shows the strengths and weaknesses in the system.

Because the Mayans disappeared almost 500 years before the Spanish arrived, there are very little written records of their culture. This makes it even more important to study the pieces of their culture that have been left for us. The two main aspects of Mayan culture that this paper looks at are hieroglyphics and architecture. They necessitate being studied together due to the fact that they are so intertwined in Mayan culture. In this paper, I will show how Mayan hieroglyphics and architecture relate to us their social structures, religious worldviews, and political histories through investigation of three Mayan cities: Copan, Tikal, and Palenque. I will also compare and contrast these cities together in order to avoid over-generalizing Mayan

Throughout Latin America women struggle with inequality and social barriers that prevent them from being successful businesswomen. In Peru specifically, women are still viewed as the homemakers, while men are the breadwinners of the family. Many women are striving to overcome these biases and enter the business world where they can find their purpose and make a difference within their communities. While some women have taken a stance and transitioned into the business sector successfully, most women are still prevented by their families, the community or businesses from taking strides to better themselves and reaching authoritative positions within a company. My focus for this paper will be to understand the barriers that Peruvian women face in the business world and how their gender prevents them from advancing or entering certain industries. It will also briefly highlight successful Peruvian businesswomen and how they, alongside local organizations, assist and uplift other women in their business ventures.

Many people are intrigued and fascinated by material and landscape remains of ancient societies of the Western Hemisphere. Prior to the arrival of European conquerors, traders, and missionaries, many distinct cultures already occupied the land. One such culture was that of the Maya who lived in a region of Mesoamerica centered on the modern country of Guatemala and also included portions of southern Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Belize (Ashmore and Tourtellot 1993, 130). The precontact Maya left behind an amazing complex of architectural features and other cultural materials. They also left behind evidence of their literacy in the form of hieroglyphics carved in stone, stucco, and other materials; perhaps the most acclaimed example of Mayan literature is known today as the Popol Vuh (Himelblau 1989, 98). A review of the literature available on the subject of the Popol Vuh, The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life, reveals an intriguing story of the journey of this work of literary art and repository of the culture of the Maya people which has been preserved for us over the past five centuries. This paper will describe what is known about the preservation of this work by Spanish missionaries in the sixteenth century as well as more recent efforts to utilize the Popol Vuh to gain greater insight into the worldview of the Maya. We will also discuss the vivid and evocative imagery of the creation story itself. Finally, we will consider the degree to which the Popol Vuh we have today may have been influenced by the newcomers to the Western Hemisphere and their religion.

Tatiana Proskouriakoff was a Russian-born American archaeologist. She was first educated as an architect, and after graduation she worked for the University of Pennsylvania museum doing sketches of archaeological sites. After working at Piedras Negras, a Mayan site in Guatemala, she became fascinated with Mayan hieroglyphics. She cracked the code of Mayan writing by discovering it contained records of past rulers. This helped Mayan scholars figure out how to read the hieroglyphics, and they were able to learn about Mayan life from codices. Without Tatiana’s work, we would be much farther behind in our understanding of Mayan societies.

Women in Latin America struggle to overcome the gender roles placed upon them and gain opportunities to showcase their skill and intelligence within the business world, namely through entrepreneurship. This poster summarizes the struggles that Latin American women face in the job market and tells the stories of three entrepreneurial women (Leila Velez, Marian Ródan & Jimena Floréz) and how they have defied the odds and created an established business. It will mainly focus on the biographies of these women and the impacts they have made on women throughout Latin America.

Over the past two hundred years, many women have made substantial contributions to the field of Archaeology. My presentation focuses on three particular female archaeologists. I have intentionally chosen female archaeologists who represent those who worked primarily in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. My aim is to demonstrate that many women have made important contributions to our understanding of the human past.