Browse Exhibits (16 total)

Research on aggression in media is often focused on the aggression’s influence of later aggressive acts. One area that is often not researched is the perceptions of these aggressive acts, and how they are influenced. Prior research on influences on perceptions have shown that they can be influenced by ingroup bias (Hastorf & Cantril,1954; Kim, 2016) and differences in personality (Costa & McCrae, 1986). These areas of research can be tied together in order to look at the differences of perceptions of aggressive acts and how they are influenced, specifically looking at political ideology and agreeableness. This is the focus of the present study, by seeing how the differences of political ideology and agreeableness affect how individuals perceive acts of aggression. The acts of aggression that will be focused on are video media of interactions between police and protestors during a Black Lives Matter protest.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Thomas Holtgraves

Psychological Science

Undergraduate

Honors College

Past research regarding parental communication and risk-taking behaviors largely focuses on risk-taking behaviors happening during adolescence, more specifically, the focus has largely been on sexual risk-taking behaviors. The current research examines this relationship of quality parental communication and risk-taking behaviors but shifts the focus to risk-taking behaviors happening in a different developmental period—emerging adulthood. The risk-taking behaviors examined in the present study are risky drinking behaviors, such as binge drinking and the risk taking behavior of vaping, as they have not been extensively researched in the past. The present study’s objective was to determine whether quality parental communication happening during adolescence would be related to risk-taking behaviors happening in emerging adulthood. Specifically, it was hypothesized that quality parent-adolescent communication would have a negative relationship with both alcohol use and the use of electronic cigarettes during emerging adulthood. Participants completed measures of parent-adolescent communication as well as measures regarding their current drinking and vaping habits and correlation and regression analysis were conducted. The results of these analysis indicated that quality parental communication during adolescence had a significant negative correlation with alcohol use in emerging adulthood but no correlation was found for quality parental communication and vaping habits.

Faculty mentor: Anjolii Diaz

Department of Psychological Science

Undergraduate

Honors College 

This project allows for students to be able to use their knowledge in other subjects as well as be able to argue their point by using facts which will always be helpful. The objective of this project is for students to be able to figure out new perspectives historically through methods not used before by looking at literature at the time nd how food is being portrayed. Students after reading will then research their character that they were assigned and determine whether their interaction of food portrayed in the book is accurate. This is great for students to be able to practice multiple skills in one lesson as well as be able to use their skills in multiple subjects being taught.

Faculty Mentor: Alexander Kaufman

Department of History

Undergraduate

Honors College

Crime mapping is a nearly 200-year-old discipline used by geographers, criminologists, and analysts to study criminal patterns and trends. As crime data has become more readily available to the public through online services such as the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer, the potential for crime mapping has grown extensively. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how crime mapping has evolved and provide an example of its practice by analyzing crime in Indiana.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jörn Seemann

Department of Geography

Undergraduate

Honors College

This research analyzed 10 buttons recovered from an archaeological site for composition. The buttons were excavated from an unmarked 19^th century African American cemetery in Lowndes County, Mississippi. Each button was sampled, and infrared spectra were obtained for each sample using Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy. The unprocessed spectra were deconvolved, and a fourth derivative of spectra were obtained to check the validity of the peaks. Replicate spectra of each button were also obtained.

Preliminary project results indicate that the majority of button samples may be composed of a mixture of different types of feldspars, a group of technological minerals, clay, and sillimanite. Reference spectra for each feldspar type is very similar and makes distinct feldspar identification difficult. The spectral data indicate that these buttons are composed of materials consistent with the Prosser button method production. Prosser buttons were commonly used for clothing from 1840 onward (Sprague 2002). According to the patent, Prosser buttons were composed of flint and clays. Unlike the higher-quality Prosser buttons that were often made from ground quartz, these buttons were likely made of ceramic wasters, including a combination of the aforementioned feldspars. 

These results contribute to the field of feldspar identification, material composition identification of archaeological artifacts, and the production profile of buttons dating to the Civil War period. Understanding button production provides interesting insight into industrial methods and clothing history.

Faculty Mentors: Dr. Patricia Lang (Department of Chemistry) and Dr. Homes Hogue (Department of Anthropology)

Department of Chemistry and Department of Anthropology

Undergraduate

Honors College