Social and Behavioral Sciences

Reschke, Peter; Cooper, Alexandra; Clayton, Colter K. (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Reschke, Peter (Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Family Life)

Research has demonstrated that context plays a significant role in emotion perception (Reschke et al., 2018). However, it is unclear whether context produces differences in visual scanning of facial expressions of emotion. The present study explored whether variability within facial expressions differentially interacts with posture context to produce changes in emotion perception.

Participants (N = 86) viewed 96 images comprised of "open" (i.e., scrunched nose, open mouth, protruding tongue) and "closed" (i.e., scrunched nose, closed mouth) versions of disgust faces photoshopped onto postural expressions of emotion (disgust, anger, fear, sadness, joy, neutral). Subjects saw each image for 5000 ms while their eye movements were recorded by an eye tracker and were then asked to categorize the emotion in the facial expression.

The results support prior research demonstrating that contextual influence (i.e., categorizations matching the context) differed significantly within emotion contexts as a function of face type, F(3, 5436) = 29.65, p < .001 (Reschke et al., 2019). Specifically, contextual influence increased significantly for closed and open disgust facial expressions in anger and sadness contexts (ps < .001) and decreased significantly in fear contexts (p < .001). However, these differences in behavioral responses were not reflected in participants' visual scanning behaviors. Specifically, subjects fixated significantly more in the lower face region (M = 3.29) than the upper face region (M = .76), t(2268) = 37.56, p < .001, regardless of face type. Additionally, participants took significantly more time to fixate on the upper face region (M = 1046.77) than the lower face region (M = 580.07), t(1652) = 10.59, p < .001, also regardless of face type.

These findings suggest that behavioral differences in context-dependent emotion categorization are not due to reliable differences in visual scanning. Future directions and alternative explanations will be discussed.

Christensen, Kate L.; Hinkson Jr, Kent D.; Brooks Malisa M.; Bryan, Craig J.� (Utah Valley University)
Faculty Advisor: Hinkson Jr, Kent (Utah Valley University and University of Utah, Psychology); Brooks, Malisa (University of Utah, Psychology)

Among the staggering rates of sexual assault, little attention has been directed towards the specific risk factors involved with coercive sexual assault. The few studies that have been conducted focus solely on college campuses. Studies have found that the potential risk factors between forced sexual assault and coercive sexual assault are fundamentally different. While forced sexual assault is associated with environmental risk factors such as alcohol, coercive assault risk factors have a stronger relationship with the victim's level of depression and self-esteem. Though depression and low self-esteem can affect people for a variety of different reasons, age tends to be a reliable predictor of both of these risk factors. Depression and low self-esteem have some of the highest rates among teens and young adults. When focusing on the Military, we see depression rates higher than that of the general public, with similar patterns of teenagers and young adults (18 to 25) being the most affected. With the knowledge that depression and low self-esteem are risk factors in coercive sexual assault and knowing an age group that is more likely to be depressed and struggle with esteem, we should expect to see a relationship between age and being a victim of coercive sexual assault. In a survey consisting of veterans, age had a mild relationship with coercive rape, with younger people being more susceptible and their older counterparts holding less risk. When focusing on other distinctions of sexual crimes such as harassment, assault, and rape, age was not found to be a risk factor. Knowledge of the relationship between coercive sexual assault and age carries important implications, particularly in the form of education and support. Leaders armed with this data can inform young people of this potential risk, provide preventative strategies, and recommend therapy or support groups when necessary.

Moore, Sydney; Lech, Kimberly; Richardson, Bianca; Jensen, Amber; Thiel, Rebecca (Weber State University)
Faculty Advisor: Dunn, Charles (Weber State University, College of Nursing); Miles, Leslie (Brigham Young University, College of Nursing)

"The impact of child maltreatment on attachment is established in childhood" (Stronach et al., 2011), "with this effect remaining relatively stable through adulthood" and most often manifested as an anxious or avoidant attachment. (Weinfeld, Sroufe, & Egeland, 2000) (Oshri et al., 2105) Anxious individuals fear abandonment, are obsessive and desire high levels of reciprocity with others whereas avoidant individuals fear intimacy and closeness and avoid committed relationships (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). Can the quality of adult romantic relationships also known as "attachment" be determined by the type and frequency of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) or trauma those adults experienced growing up? The ACE survey consisting of 10 questions covering abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction, and 17 questions from the Experiences of Close Relationships (ECR) questionnaire rating participants' responses on a Lickert scale of 0-4 were used to compile the data. We propose the following hypothesis, in concordance with existing research, a higher ACE score will be an indicator of lower relationship quality/satisfaction in adulthood. Primarily through social media, the study was conducted among the student population of Weber State University and our circles of influence to explore a possible connection. This study targeted adults aged 18-70 with varying genders, backgrounds, and education levels. 344 people completed the survey. A connection can be seen between the instances of abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction experienced as children and the quality of their romantic relationships as adults. The current study shows a strong negative correlation between ACE and ECR scores supporting our hypothesis. The average ACE score was 2.6 out of 10. The average ECR score 48.1 out of 68. with a significance of .000. This shows a strong negative correlation between ACE and ECR scores supporting our hypothesis.

White, Justin; Dahl, AnnElise; Harmison, Dillon; Klein, Jenni; Lemons, Anne; Simmons, Jordan; Mansfield, Cade; White, Leigh (Weber State University)
Faculty Advisor: Mansfield, Cade (Weber State University, Psychology); Shaw, Leigh (Weber State University, Psychology)

Contrary to stereotypes, past research indicates that people become more emotionally positive across adulthood. Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory posits that with shortened time horizons over the lifespan people focus more on emotional satisfaction and meaning in life (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). This "positivity effect", is found in the fact that relative to younger adults, older adults show biases toward superior processing of positively valenced emotional stimuli (Carstensen & Mikels, 2005). Personal relationships are a key source of satisfaction and emotional well-being and from the standpoint of Socio-emotional Selectivity theory, positivity in relationships is thought to be highly prioritized by older adults. Yet, according to classic and contemporary developmental psychological theories such as Erikson's Psychosocial theory of development and Arnett's theory of emerging adulthood, younger adults should also prioritize positivity in relational functioning. There has been less theory and research that has focused on understanding how midlife adults process emotionally rich relational experiences. To better understand emotional and cognitive processes across adulthood, the current study explores age-related differences in the emotional impact of a difficult relational experience (a time one perpetrated harm against another) and age-related differences in the linguistic features of adults' narratives of these experiences. Two hundred and eighteen adults ranging in age from 20 to 69 were recruited to participate in the study through Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform. Participants were asked to recall a time when they did something that negatively impacted a personally important relationship and to then vividly recall it for 2 minutes. Then they completed a battery of questionnaires about the memory. Finally, participants wrote narratives about the memory. Data are being analyzed only for those participants who recalled memories consistent with the prompt and passed attention checks during the protocol (n = 194, female = 110, Mean Age = 43.32, SD = 13.82).

Halter, Colt; Jacobsen, Natalia; Wood, Elizabeth; Capitanio, John; Higley, James (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Higley, James (Brigham Young University, Psychology)

Studies show that early parent-infant attachment categorization is not only predictive of child outcomes, but also second-generation parenting behavior. Few studies, however, have longitudinally assessed how infant behavior inhibition affects future adult parenting styles. Studies show that behavior inhibition is interindividually stable across time and situation, with elevated plasma cortisol levels serving as a marker of anxious temperament. In this study, we investigate the relationship between infant cortisol concentrations and later parenting behavior. We hypothesized that high cortisol levels in infancy would predict deficits in maternal behaviors later in adulthood. Due to their biological and behavioral similarities to humans, rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) were used. The subjects were 123 females, first studied when they were 3-4 months of age, underwent a 25-hour mother-infant separation, during which four blood samples were obtained: one at 2-hours, 7-hours, 11.5-hours, and 12-hours post-separation. 3-5 years later, these same subjects were observed as mothers, and four 300-second observations of maternal behaviors that are traditionally associated with the quality of the mother-infant attachment relationship were obtained—infant approaches and leaves, and mutual-ventral contact. Other behavioral measures that characterize rhesus monkey anxiety, including self-directed behaviors, were also recorded. Controlling for infant age and sex, results showed that infant cortisol predicted adult maternal deficits, with high cortisol concentrations predicting high rates of infant approaches and leaves (p<.03) and low rates of mutual ventral contact (p<.03). High cortisol concentrations also predicted mothers' anxiety-like self-directed behaviors (p=.04). These results suggest that females with high cortisol as infants show anxiety-like behaviors as adults and exhibit deficient parenting behaviors, leading their infants to drive the mother-infant relationship. To the extent that these results generalize to humans, this study lends empirical evidence to the proposed relationship between early life anxiety and deficits in later parenting behaviors.

Garrison, Mackenzie; (Utah State University)
Faculty Advisor: Graul, Antje (Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, Marketing and Strategy Department); Thompson, Greg (Brigham Young University, Anthropology)

The means of transportation is forever changing and just recently multiple means of electric transport have emerged in our cities. People are taking full advantage of all means of transportation but the framework for decision making has not adapted to include all means of transport. Current frameworks are largely utilitarian based and do not account for a large portion of travel mode choice behaviors. The goal for this project was to identify alternate decision frameworks for understanding and modeling consumers' personal travel mode choices and determine the appropriateness of a non-compensatory Maslow-like framework for explaining consumers decision making processes for travel mode choice. To complete this goal, we followed two objectives:
1) Qualitatively determine the structure and contents of consumers' pre-consumption perceived satisfaction of needs for understanding the personal transportation mode choice decision-making process and consumers' intention to engage into a particular mode of transport from a consumer behavior perspective, and
2) Quantitatively validate the proposed framework by taking both pre-consumption perceptions and post-consumption evaluations into consideration.
To collect data, we used two means of research: conducting focus groups and collecting surveys. This allowed us to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. From this data we concluded that travel mode decisions are influenced by a number of factors ranging from convenience to environmental concern. Depending on the type of transportation, some factors were considered more than others. Some factors included health when bicycling, traffic when driving an independent vehicle, and relationship building with bicycle and scooter share. As we predicted, there are many factors, both utilitarian and non-utilitarian, that drive transportation decision making.

Kamhout, Sarah; Eddington, Hyrum; Orr, Taylor; Gilliat, Stephen; Hayward, Tyler (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Lundwall, Rebecca (Family Home and Social Sciences, Psychology Department and Neuroscience Center)

Human stool contains microbiota that impact brain development and behavior through neuroendocrine and neuroimmune systems. Prior studies on adults with autism show differences in microbiota between autistic and control subjects. Since microbiota are normally established early in life, we wanted to know if infants with older siblings with autism had different microbiotal abundance and variety than infants with no first-, second-, or third-degree relatives with autism. We were also interested in sex differences as historically autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been diagnosed more often in boys.

We collected fecal samples from 36 children ages 3-24 months. 18 control samples (no first-, second-, or third-degree relatives with ASD) were matched for age and sex with 18 samples from children with an older sibling diagnosed with ASD. Following triplicate PCR amplification of a single DNA extraction, QIIME software was used to assign operational taxonomic units to each strain. PCoA and PERMANOVA were completed in R. These tests showed gut flora of high-risk individuals was significantly different than controls (p = .008). PCoA showed segregation of experimental from control samples (p = .037), most pronounced in female sub-population (p = .006). A differential abundance test was done with ANCOM. Levels of B. fragilis were significantly lower in the at-risk females (W = 560). One of the taxa groups with the most abundance, Lachnospiraceae, was also significantly lower in the at-risk group (W = 48).

This suggests that microbial markers, including B. fragilis, may help identify individuals at risk for ASD, particularly girls. This is consistent with other research on B. fragilis and ASD. Further study is necessary to determine the predictive accuracy of ASD diagnosis based on biomarkers including B. fragilis. More detailed understanding of the microbiome of at risk individuals may lead to earlier detection, intervention, and ultimately improved outcomes for ASD patients.

Birmingham, Wendy; Macintosh, Janelle; Vaughn Allison; Graff, Tyler (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Birmingham, Wendy (Brigham Young University, Psychology)

Background: Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is transmitted between sexual partners. It is the most common sexually transmitted disease, affecting the majority of sexually active adults at some point. HPV can lead to various cancers, including anal, vaginal, vulva, cervical, penile and oral. Despite the prevalence of HPV within the population, vaccination rates for this virus are extremely low. This could be due to the fallacy that vaccinations are ineffective or unnecessary. Specifically, the misconception that HPV solely impacts women. We hypothesized that parents who do not vaccinate their children are more likely to believe these misconceptions, which could impact vaccine compliance in their boys.

Method: In this study, we surveyed 210 parents to gage their perceptions of the rarity of HPV viral infection among the sexes, the efficacy of vaccines in preventing disease, and the reported vaccination uptake of their children.

Results: We conducted several analyses using SPSS. In line with our hypothesis, results revealed that parents who do not believe that vaccines are effective do not vaccinate their children against HPV. While many parents agree that vaccines protect against disease, nearly half of these parents reported that they have not vaccinated their children against HPV. Contrary to our hypothesis, analysis regarding both boys and girls' necessity to be vaccinated did not show statistically significant results.

Conclusions: Taken together, these results show that parents who do not believe in the efficacy of vaccines indeed do not vaccinate their children against HPV. Furthermore, even though parents may believe that the HPV vaccine is effective, adherence to recommended vaccination is severely low. We hypothesized that this adherence gap would be related to the perception that HPV is a female issue; however, this belief was not shown in our results. Further study into parental justification behind their choice not to vaccinate is needed.

Loveless, Emily; Mack, Brittney; Squire, Jenna; Turner, Haylee; Nicholls, Emily; Luke, Steven; Cabbage, Kathryn (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Luke, Steven (College of Family Home and Social Sciences, Psychology); Cabbage, Kathryn (McKay School of Education, Communication Disorders)

Language impairment affects approximately 7-9% of all children and puts children at risk for long-term negative impacts on academic performance, development of social relationships, and even vocational outcomes in adulthood (Clegg, Hollis, Mawhood, & Rutter, 2005). Preschoolers with language impairment have reduced vocabulary, use less complex oral language structures, have difficulty comprehending grammatical structures in spoken language, and poor social communication (Paul & Norbury, 2018). At present, a common recommendation to improve literacy skills in typically developing children emphasizes exposing children to stories through shared book reading from a young age. When being read a storybook, preschoolers without language impairment are more likely to focus their attention on the objects and people specifically mentioned in the text (Luke & Asplund, 2018), suggesting that they are connecting storybook images with oral language comprehension. It is unknown, however, whether children with language impairment benefit in the same way from recommended exposure to shared book reading to improve language and literacy outcomes. Prior research with older children with language impairment has shown that these children initially attend to the appropriate object or person in the text but do not sustain their attention to items that are relevant to what they're hearing (Nation, Marshall, & Altmann, 2004), suggesting they may need support learning what to attend to when integrating oral language with visual images. In this study, we aim to see if a similar pattern emerges for preschool-aged children with language impairment. This study has a strong potential to significantly improve our understanding of how to support language development processes during storybook reading, specifically with children with language impairment.

Kristianna J. Radley - Department of Psychology, University of Utah. u1119263@utah.edu. Rebecca R. Steed - Population Science, Huntsman Cancer Institute; Department of Geography, University of Utah. Dr. Huong Meeks - Population Science, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah. Dr. Ken R. Smith - Utah Population Database, Population Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute; Department of Family and Consumer Studies, University of Utah. (University of Utah)
Faculty Advisor: Smith, Ken (University of Utah, Department of Family and Consumer Studies)

How is your risk of mortality as an adult affected by your living circumstances, your family and your neighborhood that existed earlier? In the state of Utah, we have a historical collection of data on individual circumstances early in life and death records for the entire population through the Utah Population Database (UPDB). This work began by creating geographical representations of the longevity in Utah by neighborhoods based on residential location in 1940 to determine if certain areas are associated with higher, or possibly lower, adult mortality rates. The 1940 census was used because it represents the most recent census year where specific identifiers are available that allows us to follow individuals until their deaths or their current age. We found that mortality risks vary based on an individual's location residence in 1940, specifically adults living in urban areas. This research is being extended by exploring individual characteristics that may explain these spatial longevity differentials. For this work, it will also be important to explore how individual and neighborhood characteristics may interact, where certain combinations serve to either increase or decrease the risk of adult mortality. We are continuing this research by adding a third level of analysis by including a familial component in relation to mortality risk. This additional component allows us to determine if family members share a risk of mortality which might be associated with neighborhood clustering (since family members may be more likely to live near one another) or because of shared genetics. By studying all three levels of mortality risk, this research will lead to a more comprehensive assessment of the social and geographic origins of mortality risk (at the level of the individual, family, and community). This work may have the ability to identify community characteristics that will promote healthier and longer lives.

Ipsen, Melannee; Allen, Audrey; Urness, Katherine; Thacker, Melinda; Cabbage, Kathryn (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Cabbage, Kathryn (McKay School of Education, Communication Disorders)

Speech delays affect up to 12% of children and are the most common communication disorder treated by speech-language pathologists (Lewis et al., 2006). Furthermore, approximately 18% of preschool-aged children with speech delay will develop dyslexia or other reading impairments (Lewis et al., 2011).
Current research agrees that both children with SD and those with dyslexia have deficits in phonology---the underlying system responsible for processing and organizing speech sounds (Anthony et al., 2011; Snowling, 2000). Both children with SD and children with dyslexia have specific deficits in speech perception (Lof & Synan, 1997; Rosen, 2003). It is unclear the degree to which these groups differ in underlying aspects of phonology, such as speech perception. Prior research suggests that these children may display distinct speech perception patterns based on their SD or dyslexia status (Cabbage, Hogan, and Carrell, 2016; Johnson et al., 2011). Speech components that cause speech perception difficulties for children with SD may be different from those that cause difficulty for those with dyslexia. Specifically, children with SD have been shown to have more difficulty perceiving the rapid temporal aspects, or spectral structure, of speech (e.g., formant frequency transitions) while those with dyslexia have been shown to have more difficulties perceiving the more global structure of speech (e.g., amplitude envelopes, syllabic cues) (Cabbage, et al., 2016; Goswami, 2011; Johnson et al., 2011).
The current study compares speech perception abilities in children with SD, children with SD+dyslexia, and typical peers in speech modified in spectral and global acoustic structure. We expect children with SD or SD+dyslexia will show poorer perception for spectral speech tasks and only children with SD+dyslexia will show poorer perception for global speech tasks. These findings will be used to help detect which children with SDs are at a higher risk for developing dyslexia.

Geist, Claudia; Collins, Saffron (University of Utah)
Faculty Advisor: Geist, Claudia (Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sociology)

Unplanned pregnancies can have negative effects, especially in poor communities. There is little research about the perceived impact of a hypothetical pregnancy. Understanding individuals' ideas about how unplanned pregnancies might affect their lives will help us understand contraceptive behavior and ideas about family formation.

We explore the perceived impact of a hypothetical pregnancy among individuals who participated in the HER Salt Lake Contraceptive Initiative (Sanders et al., 2018). We coded 800 responses to the question "Please tell us a bit more about how a pregnancy now or in the next few weeks would affect your life." A desire to avoid pregnancy for the next year was an enrollment criterium, so most participants had negative feelings about a hypothetical pregnancy. However, we found that the kind of anticipated impact varied.

The most common response was a worry about financial resources (30.6%), followed by educational goals (20.4%): "It would stop my plans of going to graduate school and hurt my financial situation greatly. It would hurt my current relationships with partners and family and would be very emotionally and physically stressful." "Pregnancy now would rock my world. I am a single mom of 2 toddlers who's going to school part time and working part time. If I were to become pregnant now or in the next few weeks I wouldn't be able to accomplish the goals that I have set for myself." About 16.9% of participants mentioned negative impact without being specific. However, 5.4% of the respondents reported positive thoughts about a hypothetical pregnancy.

Our study may help scholars and medical providers get a better understanding of the precursors of decision-making processes for contraception and family planning. It will also illustrate where individuals faced with an unplanned pregnancy may need support.