This study proposes and confirms two new predictors of work and family outcomes, thus far unexplored in existing work-family literature: fathers' religious involvement at home and fathers' family involvement at home. It is the first study to date to document that these produce a crossover effect to positively influence work-related outcomes including work-family conflict, work-family fit and job satisfaction. Data come from employed married fathers and their spouses participating in the 2001 BYU Marriott School of Management Alumni Work and Family Survey (n = 210), all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Findings are that fathers who were more religiously involved at home and their spouses reported greater marital satisfaction than fathers and their spouses who were less involved. Fathers who were highly involved with their families at home reported less work-family conflict, greater work-family fit, and greater marital satisfaction and spouse's marital satisfaction, than fathers who were less involved. Interactions showed that when fathers exhibit the combination of high religious and high family involvement, the religious involvement acts as a catalyst to generate greater levels of marital satisfaction and spouse's marital satisfaction. Finally, the study revealed a significantly positive relationship exists between marital satisfaction and job satisfaction. Results suggest that the father who engages in both high religious involvement and high family involvement at home may receive the benefits, or from a religious perspective, the "blessings," of enhanced marital satisfaction, and therefore, job satisfaction as a result of his fulfillment of sacred obligation to God. And, implications of the study suggest employing organizations may garner immense savings in terms of turnover costs due to the increase in job satisfaction among its employed fathers. Thus, data such as these suggest that flexible work arrangements, which may facilitate greater investment by the father in religious and family involvement at home, may create a dynamic system enabling enhanced family processes and, therefore, the strengthening of families, society and the economy.

This paper explores an emerging construct: relationship hope. I define relationship hope as when individuals feel that regardless of the current quality of the relationship, there is significant hope for the relationship in the future if they keep working on it. The Relationship Hope Scale (RHS) is a new five-item scale that measures this construct. I evaluated the psychometric properties of RHS with Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT). I used a nationally representative sample of married individuals, ages 25-50 years old, in the United States. I found that RHS performs well in both CTT and IRT analyses, that we can assume measurement invariance between genders and first and second (or more) marriages, and that the mean levels of relationship hope do not differ by demographic variables like education, race, and income level. I also found that the RHS discriminates well between individuals that have thought about divorce a few times, several times, a lot of times, or not at all. These findings on relationship hope have valuable implications for relationship education, therapy, and future research because relationship hope measures a concept of change and potentiality.

The purpose of this study was to comprehensively assess potential stressors during the divorce transition. Three dimensions of divorce-related stressors were examined: occurence, perceived disruptiveness, and area of life change. Survey data from a representative sample of 80 divorced parents were collected 6 to 12 months post decree. The divorce transition was characterized by both positive and negative experiences in which men and women generally reported similiar levels of stress associated with their divorce-related experiences. The findings also supported the importance of classifying experiences by the area of life change, and of examining the disruptiveness associated with the experiences in addition to the simple occurences of various life changes.

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This dissertation investigates the effect of education on the chances and age of marriage during the transition from adolescence into young adulthood among Kenyan women age 15-22. Women who receive more education are more likely to delay marriage. The literature suggests that occupation and age at sexual debut are also significantly associated with age of marriage. This study considers how these and other factors may possibly affect the life course of women in Kenya over a period of time and increases our understanding of marriage predictors. Data comes from the 2003 and 2008 Kenya Demographic and Health Surveys. Binary logistic and OLS regression models are used to analyze and compare the data. The results imply that while education has a statistically significant and strong positive effect on a woman's marital status as well as age of marriage, the effect of education on age of marriage has not changed since the introduction of Kenya's free primary education program.

Hope is a variable that is defined in research as a positive outlook on one's future and a plan to achieve that future. Hope has been found to be positively correlated with self-esteem, optimism, and life satisfaction, and negatively correlated with suicide ideation and suicidality. However, there is a lack of research on predictors of hope in adolescents. Adolescents compose the age group that could arguably use the goal-oriented and positive outlook that hope provides the most. This study identified predictors of hope (i.e., depression, maternal and paternal support) in adolescents so as to know how society can give adolescents the advantage of hope in their lives. Depression was found to be a negative predictor of hope, and maternal support was found to be a positive predictor of hope. Data was collected from the Flourishing Families Project, a longitudinal study of adolescents.

Extradyadic romantic behavior in committed relationships, referred to here as "cheating," is a common occurrence. For the purposes of this study, we define cheating as romantic or sexual behaviors that occur outside of a committed romantic relationship and that violate the expectations of the relationship. This definition can be broken down into two parts: the behavior that occurred and the judgment of whether that behavior constitutes cheating. Using a large sample (N = 1,020), we tested a measure that conceptualized cheating as composing explicit behaviors, categorical judgment of behaviors, and dimensional judgment of behaviors. Fit statistics were mixed and we included suggested modifications. Biological sex was a significant modifier for each factor, with men endorsing significantly more explicit behaviors and women rating more behaviors as cheating and more serious. We found no significant differences in explicit behaviors or categorical judgments based on age, but older generations rated behaviors as more serious. Having experienced cheating in a relationship (as transgressor and/or victim) resulted in rating more behaviors as cheating than those who had no experience with cheating. With modifications, our measure is promising in assisting with the understanding of cheating and expectations in relationships.

Archaeological data has increased significantly with Cultural Resource Management agencies finding and recording archaeological sites all across Utah. With the site data from the Utah State Historical Preservation Office, I examine the expansion of Archaic sites in the Eastern Great Basin from the Early Archaic through the Late Archaic, through the lens of elevation and ecological zones and proximity to wetland resources. I argue that the aridness of the Middle Holocene caused the people to expand into the mountains of Utah, and that the expansion continued into the Late Archaic period, even though the environment became more moist again. I also argue that the people of the Archaic stayed near to wetlands and wetland resources throughout the Archaic.

Scholars have begun to suggest factors that explain and influence the association between pornography use and relationship outcomes but further work is still needed. Communication about pornography is one variable that may be influential but it has yet to be considered in this way. Using a dyadic sample of 713 different-gender couples, I used Actor-Partner Structural Equation Modeling to analyze associations between pornography use (male pornography use, joint pornography use and female pornography use) and relational quality (from the perspective of each partner, respectively), associations between communication about pornography and relationship quality. Communication about pornography was also considered as a moderator between pornography use and relationship outcomes. Results showed a negative association between male pornography use and relationship quality for both men and women and a positive association between joint pornography use and relationship quality for women. Communication about pornography was positively associated with relationship quality for both men and women but did not moderate the associations between pornography use and relationship quality. Results highlight the value of communicating about pornography and possible implications are discussed.

Infidelity in romantic relationships is common and has been associated with relationship dissolution and strain on individuals. Most religions teach that infidelity is harmful, and some researchers have suggested that, in the aggregate, more religious people might be less likely to report infidelity. However, research has been mixed, with some studies finding that more religious people are less likely to report infidelity, other studies finding that more religious people are more likely to report infidelity, and other studies finding no relationship. To clarify seemingly contradictory findings, I conducted a meta-analysis of the infidelity-religiosity relationship with 38 studies and a total sample size of over 35,000. A random-effects analysis found a small, statistically significant, inverse relationship between religiosity and infidelity (r = -.07, 95% CI [-.12, -.03]). However, a large degree of heterogeneity (Q = 1878.75.52, p < 0.001; I2 = 96.86) existed in this analysis, suggesting that effect sizes varied greatly between studies. In planned grouped comparisons, the relationship between religiosity and physical infidelity was not significantly different from the relationship between religiosity and emotional infidelity. Attendance at religious services and other measures of religiosity had similar relationships with infidelity, and spirituality and religiosity were equally protective against infidelity. Meta-regressions found that sample characteristics, such as race and gender, did not have a statistically significant relationship with the religiosity-infidelity effect size (p > .05), while publication status predicted effect size (p < .05). Findings are discussed through the lens of cognitive dissonance theory and intrinsic religious theory.