Honors Projects

Ava Alexander '18 

Young Authoritarians? Trends and Individual Differences in Preschoolers' Perceptions of Adult Authority

Although traditional stage theories (e.g., Piaget, 1965) postulate that preschool age children are guided entirely by punishment avoidance and absolute deference to authority, more recent research suggests that their concepts of adult authority are complex and vary based on social cognitive domain and the content of the commands (e.g., Tisak, 1986). Also, although past studies have shown that the majority of children will reject adult authority in certain contexts, much individual variation between children has been observed (e.g., Laupa, 1994). The current study expanded upon past research by exposing children to multiple typical and atypical commands across domains, while also testing for individual differences based on two forms of parental authoritarianism. Results showed that children as young as four reject commands that go against established moral or conventional norms, and sometimes reject commands in the personal domain. This pattern grew stronger with age. High right-wing authoritarianism was a significant predictor of more authoritarian parenting style, and also predicted lower child support for authority in typical conventional scenarios.

Julian Andrews '17

Informational Conformity in Survey Response Bias

The current research examined the causes of survey title effects—the tendency for survey respondents to conform their answers to the perceived bias of a survey's sponsoring organization. Title effects are generally believed to be the result of normative conformity--going along to be liked. The current research explored informational conformity—going along to be right—as a potential cause of title effects in the absence of social interaction. Attitude change was assessed by comparing baseline attitudes about animal testing with attitudes expressed three weeks later on the experimental survey. The expertise and bias of the sponsoring organizations of experimental surveys was manipulated. Initial results revealed that the expertise manipulation was not effective across all conditions and the a priori analysis was not significant. However, exploratory analysis looking at the interaction between perceptions of organizational expertise and bias did reveal patterns similar to the ones predicted. Specifically, biased organizations drove attitude change as a function of perceived organizational expertise. While further research is required to establish an experimental procedure that rectified many of the methodological flaws in the current research—patterns found in exploratory analysis suggest that informational conformity plays a role in title effects.

Hannah Broos '17

Imagery-Enhanced Interpretation Training for Public Speaking Anxiety

A negative interpretation bias has been implicated in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Cognitive Bias Modification of Interpretations (CBM-I) is a computerized intervention designed to modify this negative interpretation bias in order to reduce symptoms of anxiety. This study focused on 1) testing whether an ambiguity-absent training was a valid control condition for a CBM-I intervention and 2) assessing the influence of an added imagery-enhancement. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions differing in ambiguity (present vs. absent) and presentation (imagery vs. verbal). All participants adopted a more positive interpretation bias over time, although participants in the ambiguity-present conditions demonstrated a greater degree of positive change than those in the ambiguity-absent control conditions. Participants in the ambiguity-present conditions reported marginally significantly lower levels of self-reported fear of negative evaluations at post-training than those in the ambiguity-absent conditions, however the groups did not differ in any other measures of anxiety. The imagery ambiguity-present program, contrary to prior research. Within the imagery ambiguity-present condition, participants with higher baseline levels of imagery use demonstrated a greater-degree of positive change in interpretation bias than those with lower levels of imagery use. The results of the current study suggest that the ambiguity-absent conditions were not valued controls for this program, as they did affect levels of interpretation bias. Future research is needed to clarify the relationship between ambiguity and interpretation bias change in anxiety.

Sophie M. Brunt '17

Personality as a Moderator of the Association Between Social Media Usage and Well-being

Previous research has investigated the effects of social media usage on wellbeing. However, results have been largely conflicting due to differences in how social media usage is measured. The current study aimed to disentangle these mixed results by closely examining how distinct social media behaviors differentially affect well-being outcomes, as well as considering how personality moderates these associations. An experience sampling method (ESM) was used, which samples the same participants repeatedly via text message in order to get multiple responses from each participant. Results indicated that the three main social media behaviors—posting, interacting and scrolling—do indeed affect people differently, and that some of these effects are moderated by the personality characteristics of Extraversion, Neuroticism and Narcissism. This has important implications in terms of deciding which social media behaviors are detrimental and which are beneficial for each individual. Future research should examine differential effects of specific social media sites as well as the media effects of other age groups such as adolescents.

Emily Weinberger '15

Assigning Legal Punishment: Individual Differences in Justice Sensitivity and Selective Attention

Selective attention and justice sensitivity (JS), a personality trait reflecting individual differences in perceptions of injustice, have been shown to affect how people assign punishments. In the present study peoples’ decision-making processes were investigated to better understand the inconsistencies in legal punishment decisions, particularly when using retributive versus restorative justice. Subjects participated in three phases of the experiment. First, subjects completed a justice sensitivity scale and then rated the appropriateness of punishment options to handle a criminal scenario. Second, participants’ selective attention was indicated by their recall of pertinent features from three ambiguous criminal scenarios. Finally, participants were primed with either restorative justice or neutral control words, and rated the appropriateness of punishment options to handle a new criminal scenario. Results revealed no significant associations between JS and ratings of punishment options, although patterns suggested negative relationships between observer JS and retributive justice ratings, and victim JS and restorative justice ratings. Results did show a significant effect of JS in predicting the facts remembered, such that as observer JS increased, more restorative justice facts were recalled, and as victim JS increased, fewer restorative justice facts were recalled. No significant effect of the restorative justice prime was observed. These results may contribute to better understanding of criminal justice policy in the United States.