Physical Home Environment, Personal Competencies, and Psychological Well-Being of Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Development of a Structural Model

This multi-manuscript dissertation focuses on the relationships between the physical home environment, personal competencies, and psychological well-being among older adults living in community settings. The ecological model of aging serves as the guiding theoretical framework for the exploration and design of the subsequent studies. The first paper is a critical review of the literature. Results suggest that there is little consistency in the measurement of the physical home environment across studies. Also, more research is needed to clarify the relationships between the three major constructs and to expand the area of study to U.S. populations. Finally, some support exists to suggest that personal competence moderates the effect of the physical home environment on psychological well-being. Recommendations for research and practice are given. The second and third paper follow the research recommendations of paper one. To begin exploring the relationships between the constructs among U.S. based samples, the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) round 1 data are used. NHATS is a population-based sample of older adults drawn from the Medicare Enrollment File, which represents 96% of seniors in the continental United States. The second paper is a description of a confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) approach that tests an a priori measurement model. The sample of 6,665 community-dwelling respondents is randomly split into two subsamples (sample 1= 3,330 and sample 2= 3,335). The proposed measurement model is then refined with the first sample and validated with the second sample. The final paper describes the process of fitting a structural model to the data of the entire sample and testing whether personal competence moderates the effect of physical home environment on psychological well-being

Not a Needy Person Among Them: A Network Analysis of Prosocial and Religious Behaviors

We used a network analysis of prosocial and religious behaviors to identify facilitating hub items that might drive broad prosocial behaviors among church members. We identified four hub items that suggest that intentional involvement of church members in service to the church and community might serve to drive further prosociality

Every family has occasional difficulties : The Stability of Family Dynamics Post Coming Out

This presentation highlights findings from a study of SDA parents whose LGBTQ+ child came out to them within the past 10 years. The findings revealed that parents noted few changes in family functioning post coming out. Many noted small improvements in family functioning and enduring family strength

Trans-European Division Report: Global Church Member Survey 2017-2018

This report is the first examination of the Trans-European Division (TED) 2017-2018 Global Church Member Survey (GCMS) data. The research team worked closely with the metaanalysis team to ensure consistent implementation of the research protocol and consistent use of the questionnaire. A total of 1331 surveys were used from all TED Unions. The findings of this document are an initial analysis of the data using the latest version of SPSS. The purpose of the Executive Summary is to highlight key findings from the study, which includes: 1. Summarizing the demographic findings in order to describe the characteristics of church members in this division. 2. Describing the religious and spiritual behaviors of respondents. 3. Summarizing respondents’ awareness of and participation in General Conference sponsored programming. 4. Describing members’ acceptance of key fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Southern Asia Division Report: Global Church Member Survey 2017-2018

This report is the first examination of the Southern Asia Division 2017-2018 Global Church Member Survey (GCMS) data. The research team worked closely with the meta-analysis team to ensure consistent implementation of the research protocol and consistent use of the questionnaire. A total of 2981 surveys were used from all SUD Unions. The findings of this document are an initial analysis of the data using the latest version of SPSS. The purpose of the Executive Summary is to highlight key findings from the study, which includes: 1. Summarizing the demographic findings in order to describe the characteristics of church members in this division. 2. Describing the religious and spiritual behaviors of respondents. 3. Summarizing respondents’ awareness of and participation in General Conference sponsored programming. 4. Describing members’ acceptance of key fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

P-06 Faith, Hope and Love: An Integrated Conceptual Framework for Examining Religious Outcomes in a Global Church

The 2017-18 Global Church Member Survey conducted by the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is designed to assess the quinquennial Church Strategic Plan (2015-2020). In designing this survey, we considered a variety of theoretical frameworks that could explain relationships between the target outcomes in the Strategic Plan. The resulting novel theoretical framework is based on Biblical principles and an integration of a number of frameworks in the social sciences: motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2008; Greenberg, Solomon, & Arndt, 2008; Koole, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2006; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Goldenberg, 2003; Ryan & Deci, 2000) and hope (Bernardo, 2010; Snyder, 2002) from psychology, faith development (Dudley, 1994; Ji, 2004) from religious studies, social bonding (Hirschi, 1969; Yang et al., 2017) from sociology, and social capital (Häuberer, 2011; Putnam, 2003) from economics and development. Our integration proposes that religious actions are motivated by on-going social relationships and hope for the future; those motivations can be directed towards other human beings or towards God. In our poster, we will provide a description of this integrated framework, summarize the research literature justifying the framework, and propose lines of research that are emphasized through this theoretical framing. In particular, we focus on the possibilities within this data set for examining the motivational profiles (the levels and combinations of the four motivational types in the framework) of individuals with disabilities (Kaye & Raghavan, 2002; Snyder, 2000), with different family routines (Fiese, 2006), with different conversion experiences (Granqvist, 2003), and from different historical-cultural backgrounds (Stark, 2011)

Corelates of Legalism in a Global Sample of Seventh-day Adventists

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is often identified as a strict church (Iannaccone, 1994; Chen et al., 2019; McBride et al., 2020) in that it has specific dietary and behavioral requirements for joining and continued membership. These include abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs as well as a strong emphasis on vegetarianism (McBride et al., 2020). This has resulted in longevity advantage for Adventists (Fraser et al., 2020). This focus on behavioral requirements have resulted in critics viewing Adventists as legalists (WELS, 2022). The purpose of this research is to examine the issue of legalism among Adventist Church members

The LGBT+ Divide: Identity, Shame, and Equality Before God and the Church

Navigating one’s sexual and/or gender identity can be a difficult and complex process for Christian LGBT+ youth, leaving many of them at high risk for poor mental health outcomes and self-harming thoughts and behaviors. Seventh-day Adventist families and congregations are just beginning to grapple with how they should respond to their LGBT+ children. This survey of 310 Seventh-day Adventist adult Millennials explored perceived levels of their families’ acceptance or rejection of their sexual orientation or gender identity during their teen years. Other variables included recent levels of self-esteem, social support, depression, substance abuse, high-risk sexual activity, and suicidal thinking or attempts. Findings showed generally low levels of family acceptance and support, as well as elevated rates of depression and at-risk thoughts and behaviors. A high proportion of respondents have retained strong spiritual commitment and moderate church involvement. We conclude with recommendations for parents, family, church members, and friends who have LGBT+ loved ones