Browse Exhibits (81 total)

Moral Foundations Theory proposes that there are five moral frameworks through which individuals view their world from: care/harm principles, fairness/cheating principles, loyalty/betrayal principles, sanctity/degradation principles, and authority/subversion principles. Research has shown that liberals are more likely to both endorse and utilize moral arguments that are based on the principles of care/harm and fairness/cheating, whereas conservatives are more likely to endorse and utilize moral arguments that are based on the remaining three principles. The current study analyzed the impact that moral framing could have on individuals who selfidentified as either liberal or conservative in relation to mask-wearing and the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire assessing perceptions of COVID-19 regarding individual concern and perceived threat of the virus. Participants were then asked to complete the right-wing authoritarianism scale as well as the social dominance orientation scale to assess participant’s leanings. Participants were then shown one of three messages regarding COVID-19, framed in either a harm avoidance and fairness moral framework or purity and ingroup loyalty moral framework. Participant’s level of persuasion was then assessed, by assessing how often participants intend to wear a mask and how likely participants would be to support a national mask mandate. Results of this study will contribute to previous research that shows moral framing of statements can influence persuasion among a population that might not be likely to support it.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Andrew Luttrell 

Department of Psychological Science

Undergraduate

Honor's College 

This presentation explores how white power structures use Black women such as in Kiese Laymon's narrative Heavy as scapegoats for the blame of generational and current trauma resulting in abusive tendencies and food insecurities in Black communities. This research presentation also delves into triple consciousness and America's consumption of Black women in and outside of Laymon's novel, including the most recent spark of Black Lives Matter protests this previous summer.

Faculty Mentor: Emily Rutter

Department of English

Undergraduate

This study presented a comprehensive view of the role that psychological resources (such as fear and anxiety) play in distance perception.

Utilizing a novel, virtual approach, researchers asked participants to judge the distance of a series of virtual characters while being depicted as either wearing or not wearing a mask. Participants were also asked to make these judgments under conditions in which the virtual character being depicted was identified as either someone familiar (friend) or unfamiliar (stranger). Participants also completed a demographic questionnaire and a Likert-style measure assessing their level of fear during conditions present in the coronavirus pandemic.

Results of the study indicate mask-wearing does influence participant distance estimates. Participants underestimated the distance of virtual characters in both experimental conditions when the character was depicted as not wearing a mask. Familiarity did not influence distance perception in this study. Age and education level were also found to be correlated with participant fear ratings and participant mean distance error scores in experiment 1.

These findings extend previous research that supports the role of fear in changes in perception, such as making objects closer (Cole, Balcetis, & Dunning, 2013), bigger (Vasey et al., 2012), and appear to move faster (Witt & Sugovic, 2012) when participants are exposed to fear-inducing stimuli. Continued research in this may provide clinical importance as identifying factors that affect perception may allow for better planning and awareness in the instance of other pandemic or mass disease events. Additional research should also be conducted to extend these findings to other populations.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Daniele Nardi

Department of Psychological Sciences

Graduate

Extensive research has investigated how mindfulness impacts cognition and well-being. However, there has been no research that has looked at how mindfulness may influence how we process information. Global and Local processing is a cognitive function that helps individuals perceive and conceptualize the world. The current study is a pilot study to establish a trend in mindfulness and Global and Local processing. Participants will be tasked to listen to a 12-minute mindfulness meditation audio, then will then perform the Navon letter task which assesses accuracy for engaging in Global and Local processing. 

Faculty Mentor: Thomas Holtgraves 

Department of Psychological Science 

Graduate

Legacy tokens, artifacts written by offenders of mass shootings, provide a window through which violent behavior can be examined from the perspective of the offender. Many previous studies have investigated legacy tokens qualitatively, yet surprisingly few have conducted computerized text-analyses. Further, past work has yet to evaluate text-based differences between types of offenders, principally between those who commit suicide or survive a mass shooting event. The present study intends to use a quantitative approach to exploring these differences by using the closed-content, text analysis software, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). To accomplish this, legacy tokens will be harvested from an online database, verified by at least one other internet source, and submitted to LIWC for analysis. Legacy tokens between offender types will be compared based on language style categories shown to indicate emotionality, cognitive complexity, and attention allocation.

Faculty Mentor: Thomas Holtgraves

Department of Psychological Science

Graduate