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.

Past studies have supported that religion plays a role in how people engage in moral psychological processes, specifically regarding a person’s thoughts versus their actions. It is important to look at how religion can play a role in the sentencing of inchoate crimes, since they are crimes that have not yet been completed involving thought. It is a current practice that lawyers and judges may include or exclude a juror based on their religious affiliation due to their assumption that their religion will play a role in their decision making. However, this current practice is based on assumption and there is limited research to support that this practice is actually effective. To address this gap in the literature, I looked at the role of religion when individuals are presented with jury instructions, and asked participants to make judgements about inchoate crimes. There was an overall significant main effect of religion on sentencing decisions of inchoate crimes, and there was no significant interaction of jury instructions and religion on sentencing decisions. The results of this study indicate that the practice of excluding jurors based on religion may actually be effective and that jury instructions do not mitigate these religious biases.

In this thesis, the researcher analyzed 100 court transcripts of criminal trial testimony where children (those under 17 years old) alleging sexual abuse identified a first disclosure recipient. This thesis explores how the age and gender of these children were related to who they reported to as their first disclosure recipient. This thesis found that mothers were overwhelmingly the first disclosure recipient, regardless of victim age, in 35.35% of the cases. There was no significant relationship found to suggest that as a victim ages, they are more likely to tell a same-aged peer in adolescence. In addition, there was no relationship found between the victim's age and disclosure to someone of the same gender; however, almost all of the first disclosure recipients were women (79%). A relationship was found between age and disclosure to a parental figure; for every year older a victim was they were 1.147 times more likely to first disclose to a parental figure. These results suggest an increased importance for further study of first disclosure recipients and procedures to decrease dead-end disclosures.