2010 - Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity

Conscientiousness and College Class-Level
Differences
Alan F. Carrizo, Psychology
Mentors: Angela Minh-Tu Nguyen
Verónica Benet-Martinez
Department of Psychology
The conscientiousness personality trait can be
defined as being responsible, deliberate, and
organized. Many of the characteristics that shape
a conscientious person are, in most cases,
needed for college success. It is suggested that
colleges will encourage and increase their
students‘ levels of conscientiousness as a
response to the academic challenges presented.
We hypothesize that upper-division students
(juniors and seniors) will report higher levels of
conscientiousness than lower-division students
(freshmen and sophomores). We asked 248
college students to complete the Big-Five
Inventory, which measures conscientiousness, as
well as to provide the number of years they have
been students at the current institution. We
found that upper-division students had
marginally significantly higher levels of
conscientiousness than lower-division students.
In other words, upper-division students are more
conscientious than lower-division students.
Further research is needed to understand the
reasons for this difference and the role that the
college education and experience may play in it.
Boys Are Different Than Girls: Cross-
Cultural, Evangelical Understandings of
Masculinity
Vincent Cervantes, Religious Studies
Mentors: Jonathan L. Walton
Sherri F. Johnson
Department of Religious Studies
Within the sphere of Christianity, the
Evangelical Right seeks to bring about the reseparation
of gender spheres and encourage
adherents to ignore societal changes regarding
sex and gender roles. With its roots embedded in
the historical ideologies of ―Muscular
Christianity‖ and influenced by the New Right,
the Evangelical Christian Right bases masculinity
on being the total separation of men from
women. Drawing on the historical ideologies of
the ―Muscular Christianity‖ movement, I
examine the renewed emphasis on masculinity
within contemporary Evangelical religion and
culture and explore the degree to which steretypical
masculine themes, roles, and ideas are
expressed by evangelical media and organizations.
Furthermore, I examine how this movement
began as a White-male dominated movement,
yet has emerged into being a crosscultural
movement in response to ―White‖
masculinity. Based on an analysis of popular
male-oriented, evangelical media (including sermons,
conferences, books, magazines, etc.), I
explore how a common model of ―hegemonic
masculinity‖ emerges within evangelical
Christianity among Whites, African Americans,
and Latinos.
High content live cell imaging of Plasmodium
falciparum using RNA probes for highthroughput
antimalarial drug discovery
Michael Cervantes, Biological Sciences
Mentors: Karine Le Roch, Serena Cervantes
Jacques Prudhomme
Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience
Malaria remains a major health issue in
developing nations and causes more than one
million deaths per year. Plasmodium falciparum
is the most lethal strain of malaria and is
responsible for up to 90% of fatalities. Drug
resistant strains to common therapies exist
worldwide, and Cambodia recently reported
resistance to artemisinin-combination-based
therapy-- the preferred and last existing effective
therapy. It is imperative to obtain novel
antimalarial drugs. Our collaborators purified
compounds derived from Fijian red alga and we
examined the compound‘s antimalarial
properties. We employed the Pathway HT, an
inverted high-throughput confocal microscope;
to analyze parasites infected red blood cells in
96-well plates. To view live parasites and
examine changes in their morphology with drug
exposure we used RNA binding dye 132A.
Images were taken at the ring, trophozoite, and
schizont stage to further understand the
compound‘s mode of action at each stage of the
parasite‘s erythrocytic life cycle. After
Fourth Annual UCR Symposium for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity
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