Before the introduction of mobile/online forms of gambling, “brick and mortar” gambling was the typical form of gambling. Now, the use of mobile phones allows for greater accessibility and convenience to gambling. This modern method of gambling has attracted newer younger audiences such as college students which poses an increasing concern about problem gambling among younger individuals. Since alcohol use problems tend to co-occur with problem gambling, it is important to consider alcohol use as a predictor of problem gambling. Other factors that could potentially influence the relation between alcohol use problems and problem gambling are financial stress (as an indicator of socioeconomic status) and sensation seeking; however, the potential interactive effects of these variables with problem alcohol use in predicting problems remain unclear. The main goals of the current study were to examine the unique and interactive influences of alcohol use problems, sensation seeking, and financial stress in relation to problem gambling. The sample for the current study was taken from the Psychology participant pool enrolled at Arizona State University and met the minimum age requirement of 18 (N = 793, 64.1% Male). All analyses were conducted using R Studio (R Core Team, 2023). I ran a a series of logistic regression models for my covariates only, main effects (alcohol use problems and financial stress or alcohol use and sensation seeking) models while controlling for covariates, and interaction models (alcohol use problems multiplied by financial stress and alcohol use problems multiplied by sensation seeking). Results showed that alcohol use problems and sensation seeking were not significant predictors of problem gambling. However, financial stress (SES), sex (male), and age proved to be significant predictors of problem gambling. There were no interactions found between alcohol use problems and socioeconomic status or sensation seeking on problem gambling outcomes. Although some results from the current study are inconsistent with existing literature, the significant findings provide insight into potential future directions and treatment programs for problem gambling among college students. Further studies are needed to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the complex interactions between alcohol use problems, socioeconomic status, and sensation seeking in relation to problem gambling.

Active U.S. service members and veterans engage in heightened and hazardous alcohol consumption, which has negative implications when it comes to fulfilling their military duties. It is common for service members and veterans to suffer from both posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and hazardous alcohol use concurrently, and it is unclear how other challenges could strengthen or weaken this relation. The current study examined the extent to which posttraumatic cognitions (PTCs)–conceptualized as thinking negatively about the world, self, and self-blame–moderated the relation between PTSD and alcohol use in service members with a history of military sexual assault (MSA). An additional exploratory analysis was conducted to see if there was a possible mediating role PTCs play in the relation between PTSD and alcohol use. The current study utilized data from a parent study that administered self-report surveys to 400 U.S. service members and veterans (50%) with a history of MSA. At the bivariate level, PTSD and PTCs were significantly associated with higher alcohol use. PTCs did not moderate the association between PTSD severity and alcohol use severity. An exploratory analysis of PTCs as a mediator of the relation between PTSD and alcohol use found a significant indirect effect of PTSD severity on alcohol use severity through higher PTCs. PTCs could be a target for cognitive-behavioral therapy treatments among those who are experiencing heavy alcohol use. Keywords: alcohol use, posttraumatic stress disorder, posttraumatic cognitions, military sexual assault, military

For centuries, religion has been a part of people's lives, impacting their well-being. Well-being includes both positive and negative emotions that make people feel satisfied. Religion can affect how people handle their physical health, social behavior, support, and stress. Interestingly, more people have been abandoning religion since 1990, even though it has positive effects on well-being. In this study, I sought to understand the extent to which leaving religion is associated with all aspects of well-being, including spiritual well-being. I asked 606 Arizona State University undergraduates to rate their well-being from two different time periods in their life. Participants were first asked if they were currently religious or nonreligious;135 said they had left/changed religions. If participants indicated that they did not leave/change religions, they were asked about their well-being before and after starting at ASU. I examined perceived change in well-being to understand how religion can influence many aspects of an individual’s life. Leaving or changing religion was positively associated with well-being. Those who reported leaving religion reported better environmental, emotional, social, educational, occupational, and spiritual well-being. In the control group (ASU), educational and spiritual well-being had a significant increase, which is interesting. The results showed that changing/leaving religion had a positive association on well-being.

Over the past several decades, middle-aged Americans have exhibited troubling trends of declining mental and physical health over successive cohorts. Interestingly, this trend has not been observed in peer nations in Europe, Asia, and Mexico. Later-born cohorts in other countries typically report better midlife mental and physical health than their earlier-born counterparts. It is less clear the extent to which physical pain shows similar trends to what has been observed in the U.S. and comparison peer nations. The goal of the current study was to examine how self-reports of pain have historically changed during midlife and investigate whether differences emerge between the U.S. and peer nations. We used harmonized data on pain from nationally representative longitudinal panel surveys from the U.S., 13 European nations, South Korea, and Mexico to directly quantify similarities and differences in historical change in midlife pain. Our results supported the hypothesis that midlife pain is higher amongst later-born cohorts in the U.S. A similar pattern of historical increases in pain was observed in Continental and Nordic Europe. In England, Mediterranean Europe, South Korea, and Mexico, the opposite pattern was observed with historical declines in pain. Historical increases in reports of pain in the U.S. emerged more quickly for later-born cohorts at earlier stages of midlife. These results suggest there could be aspects of American midlife today that are exacerbating reports of pain, and these aspects may be shared in some European nations but absent or less influential in other peer nations. Our discussion focuses on potential explanations for this pattern, such as population level discrepancies in health, differential use of health care services, and the inter/intrapersonal costs of westernization, as well as how pain is conceptualized across nations.

Children have been known to engage in socially curious behaviors, such as frequently asking questions about other people’s feelings and actions (Friedman et al., 2018). Social curiosity helps children engage in cultural learning and understanding the explicit and implicit rules of society (Hartung & Renner, 2013). However, little is known about how social curiosity may impact children’s moral development. Seeking out social information may help form connections between children, increasing the extent to which they behave prosocially to others. Additionally, similar constructs to social curiosity (theory of mind and empathy) are linked to prosocial behavior (Imuta et al., 2016; Ding & Lu, 2016). The present study therefore investigates the relationship between social curiosity and prosocial sharing. To test the hypothesis that children who are primed to be socially curious will exhibit increased prosocial sharing, we used the Social Uncertainty Paradigm to elicit social curiosity in children who then completed a sticker sharing task. Our hypothesis was not supported; no significant differences between the sharing behaviors of children primed for social curiosity and those who were not. Additional research is needed to conclude whether social curiosity may be linked to prosocial behavior in a way that this study was not able to determine.

Chronic pain is common among children and can lead to future physical disability and health problems. The Biopsychosocial model of child pain suggests that biological, psychological, and social factors predict pain risk, but most research has focused on biological and psychological factors impacting child pain, and less on social factors. One social factor is family stress, including parent mental and physical health problems, and parenting and marital stress. The impact of stress, however, may vary depending on the presence of positive family resources, including marital empathy, parental warmth, and interpersonal support. Thus, the current longitudinal study examined links between family stress and increases in child pain during middle childhood and tested whether positive resources acted as a buffer to protect the development of child pain and if low social status acted as an extra stressor to make pain worse. Participants were part of the Arizona Twin Project, an ongoing longitudinal project of twins. At twin age 9, primary caregivers (PCs) reported on different stress, social status, and positive resources measures, and PCs and twins reported on twin bodily pain. At twin age 11, PCs and twins again reported on twin chronic bodily pain. Neither greater family stress nor parent physical health problems predicted increases in child pain over two years, controlling for twin pain at age 9. In tests of moderation, a single significant interaction emerged in a direction opposite of prediction: the relation between family stress and child pain was moderated by social status, such that average and high levels of social status exacerbated the relation between family stress, and child pain at age 11. Although the interaction needs to be replicated, findings suggest that high social status may act as a risk factor for poor child physical health and pain when family stress is high. Future research should further explore whether and how family stress and social status, as well as peer stress and resources, alone and in combination predict health as children age into adolescence.

The interconnection between family contexts and sleeping patterns play a crucial role in childhood development, with disturbances in either being indicative of future health outcomes in adulthood. It is unclear whether sibling relationships and sleep would have a similar effect as there are not many studies that have examined these links by using subjective sleep and sibling relationship assessments. Given this gap in the literature, the present studied aimed to 1) examine potential bidirectional relations between sibling relationships (warmth, conflict) and sleep variables (duration, efficiency, and sleep midpoint variability) across ages 8 and 10, and 2) test whether a novel sibling interaction task with measures of sharing and competition conducted at age 8 predicts sleep variables both cross sectionally and two years later at age 10. Data are from the Arizona Twin Project which includes a racially and socioeconomically diverse representation of children in Arizona. Twins wore an actigraph watch at both age 8 and age 10 to capture sleep duration and efficiency. Primary caregivers also reported sibling relationships via a questionnaire during both waves. Twins completed a marble pulling task to measure negotiation and cooperation behaviors at age 8 only. We tested cross-lagged prospective associations between sleep and sibling contexts. My study identified a longitudinal, positive association with sibling warmth at age 8 and sleep duration at age 10 and another concurrent, positive association with sibling conflict at age 8 and sleep midpoint variability at age 8. A negative association was identified between sibling warmth and sleep efficiency at age 10. Stability over time was also identified in both sleep variables and sibling relationships. Future studies can further investigate the different ways siblings may influence sleep behaviors, or vice versa, by taking into consideration the quality of the relationship, age, gender, and overall family dynamics. Due to the complexity of sibling relationships, the relations between sleep and siblings may vary among different individuals and families. These additional factors may need to be considered when evaluating the effects of sibling relationships and sleep on child development and well-being.

In cross-situational word learning, individuals associate words with their meanings by observing their use across multiple encounters. This is considered to be a crucial mechanism involved in early childhood language acquisition. However, whether learners can track multiple words for referents cross-situationally, such as when learning synonyms, remains poorly understood. The present study investigated the effects of age on children’s cross-situational word learning (CSWL) from a two-to-one structure, where objects are given two names. Younger (4 to 5.4 years, N = 29) and older (5.5 to 7.9 years, N = 48) children completed a cross-situational word learning task in which, during the first half of training, objects were labeled with one label (First words) and in the second half of training, objects were given a new second label (Second words). Results showed that age interacted with learning: younger children learned second labels but not first labels, whereas older children learned first labels but not second labels. These findings indicate the limitations of children’s capacity to learn complex word-referent mappings in CSWL.

Can Body Height and BMI predict cancer trends in humans? Using a dataset of 220,181 individuals, with 31,822 individuals having malignancy records, we found that body height (p < 2e-16) and Body Mass Index (BMI) (p < 5.6e-05) are significant predictors of developing cancer. After stratifying by sex, we determined that men and women face an elevated risk of developing cancer with increases in body height, but a very slight increase in cancer risk with increases in BMI.

This creative thesis project consists of a singing performance and literary review analysis. The interest for this project was fueled by my own experiences as an Undergraduate student with a musical background pursuing a major in Biological Sciences and minor in Business at Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University. Through an exploration of current research, this project analyzes the transformative impacts of playing music on individuals’ academic, creative, and life skills. Through the literature review, I found that music improves academic performance in students, leads to cognitive brain development, develops critical life skills including communication and leadership, as well as increases self-expression as an emotional outlet. The main goal of this project was to shed light on the benefits of playing music through a singing performance of five pieces to showcase my musical abilities, as well as advocate for the necessity of music in the school curriculum.