sfl 290 second draft

Introduction
Hypotheses
Study 1: The time spent in the Temple will have a positive significant relationship to happiness. Study 2: The time spent in Cardio exercise will have a positive significant relationship to productivity. Study 3: The time spent in scripture study will have a positive significant relationship to harmony. Study 4(random finding): The time spent with less than ten but more than three family members will have a negative significant relationship to energy.
Review of Literature
There is reason to study religion in the daily life of a seemly religious individual (Ardagh, 2006). With the current discussion of pop-psychology-as-religion the time traditionally spent on Bible reading and devoted prayer is being spent on extreme diets and meditation (Allen, 2008). In the mid 1800’s Julia Hills Johnson obtained harmony with a new age Christian religion through what contemporize consider traditional worship (Thayne, 2007). Possibly it is the religious practices of the period that increase harmony in ones life.
Conceptual definitions
Harmony an individual feeling of not simply being personally satisfied with but being in tune to the physical, mental, social, and emotional needs of oneself.
Contribution
The results focus on traditional religious activities to discover if there is a possible correlation between these practices and the participants harmony.
Method
Sample
There was one individual in sample used for all of the studies. The individual is 20-years-old and a sophomore at Brigham Young University. The sample considers herself an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and attends religious services on a weekly bases. She is white and single.
Procedure
The study began on June 28, 2011 and ended July 20, 2011. The participant recorded data daily on two spreadsheets. First, one with scales from 1 to 7 that recorded happiness, productivity, harmony, and energy at five separate times a day the entries were comprised to form a daily score (max. 35 and min. 5). A second spreadsheet was used to document the amount of time the participant did a particular activity.
Measures
The following is a list of the dependent variables and how they were measured. The operational definition of happiness was defined by a self-report of happiness on a scale: 1: unbearably sad, 4: no notice/normal, 7: unbearably happy. The operational definition productivity was defined by a self-report of productivity on a scale: 1: nothing accomplished, 4: no notice/normal, 7: beyond believable accomplished. The operational definition of harmony was defined by a self-report of harmony on a scale: 1: completely disturbed, 4: no notice/normal, 7: completely content. The operational definition of energy was defined by a self-report of energy on a scale: 1: very slow powered, 4:no notice/normal, 7: high powered. The independent variables were measured completely by the amount of time spent in the activity: temple, cardio exercise, personal scripture study, and time with more than 3 but less than 10 family members.
Results
Descriptive Statistics
Happiness Productivity Harmony Energy
Mean 22.83 21.17 23.13 19.43
Med 23 22 22 19
Mod 23 22 21 19
Std. D 3.172 3.326 4.278 3.883
Range 12 15 16 14


Temple Cardio Scripture Study Religious Reading Family Time
Mean 1.25 .65 .3156 .6833 4.125
Med 1.25 .5 .25 .625 3.5
Mod .5 (multiple) .5 .25 .5 1 (multiple)
Std. D 1.0607 .318 .18504 .40825 1.0607
Range 1.5 1.2 .65 1.15 1.5

Correlations
In study 1 a significant negative relationship between time spent in the temple and happiness was discovered. The r value was -1.0 and this was probably due to the low n value of temple visits. For study 2 there was not a significant correlation between the cardio exercise and the level of daily productivity. The P value was .385 and the r value was .252. Study 3 had an unexpected strong negative relationship between the length of scripture study and harmony. It had an r value of -.450 and p value of .080.
Study 4(random finding)
There was not significant relationship between energy and time with family. Just for fun the researcher entered in the two variables and controlled for the amount of lucky pennies found. After the lucky pennies were controlled there was a strong positive relationship between the amount of time with family and level of energy.
Multiple Regression
After controlling for the amount of time spent reading religious class text with harmony as the dependent variable and personal scripture study as the independent variable the resulting beta was -.933 with a p value of .426.
General Discussion
Summary of Results
Study 1 predicted a positive relationship but the results showed a significant negative relationship between Temple and happiness. This was probably because the participant only visited the temple two times. Study 2 did not support a correlation between cardio workout and the productivity possibly due to poor measurement. The method for measuring cardio work out was limited to the length of the work out and did not take into consideration the difficulty of the workout. Study 3 showed that the amount of time spent in personal scripture study and harmony did not have a statistically significant relationship. The researcher believed that a possible lurking variable for this finding was that the participant read a large amount of religious text for a religion class. After computing the three sets of data a surprisingly strong negative beta was found with a low p value.
To better see the results the researchers entered the amount of time spent in personal scripture study and harmony into a scatter plot with harmony as the y-axis. The scatter plot showed three major groups. First, a high outlier group on days little scriptures were read but the participant felt in harmony. Second, a low outlier group in the corner on days a large amount of scripture were read but the participant felt disharmonized. The majority of the dots followed a crude positive relationship pattern through the center of the graph. The outlier groups influenced the r statistics, but the variable that caused these outlier groups was not identified in this study.
Summary of Results
There were no statistically significant and important findings in any of the studies. Due to the lack of data in study 1 the results should not be considered valid. The measurement for cardio exercises in study 2 should have been more specific. The results found in study 3 appear to be the most interesting and the researcher believes that further personal investigation should be conducted to discover the variables that could have caused the possible outlier groups.
Limitations and Future Directions
There were a few problems with internal validity because the participant forgot to record on the spreadsheets and had to recall and suppose the data on a later date. The method for measuring cardio exercises should be modified to included the level of difficultly, miles ran, or calories burned to be more specific. Also, to increase the validity of the results the amount of data collected should increase, particularly in study 1.
Conclusion
Traditional styles of worship did not bring a significant amount of harmony to the sample, but the sample believes the time of day scriptures were read could influence harmony levels. The researcher also noticed that although, the pop-psychology-as-religions may be the contemporary form of worship they are not culturally accepted as religious practices in Utah Valley. Instead scripture reading and temple attendance are the religious practices that dominate the region. It is possible that practicing culturally accepted forms of worship brings greater harmony than the actual activity. A further study would need to be conductance with sample in a different cultural environment practicing traditional styles of worship.





Reference List
Allen, Matthew. Living the Dream (2008). PsycCRITIZUES. 2008. Vol. 53(8). ISSN 1554-0138. DOI 10.1037/a0010245
Ardagh, Arjuna (2006). An Exploration of Spiritual Enlightenment in Daily Life. PsycCRITIQUES, 2006, Vol.51(30). DOI 10.1037/a0002995
Thayne, Linda J. Julia Hills Johnson (2007). Julia Hills Johnson, 1783-1853 MY SOUL REJOICED. Brigham Young University.