Browse Exhibits (28 total)

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

Internalizing disorders are characterized by several negative symptoms including stress, anxiety, and mood instability (Ben-Porath, 2012; Duffy et al., 2017). The literature suggests that more women than men are diagnosed with internalizing disorders like depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1994). One mechanism that has been supported as influencing this difference is gender stereotypes, which encourage women and men to express emotions differently (Rosenfield et al., 2000). One specific area within the internalizing spectrum where we may see these gender differences is anger proneness. Anger proneness (ANP) is the tendency to become easily angered, upset, or impatient with others (Ben-Porath, 2012). Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that men tend to express anger more externally whereas women tend to express anger more internally (Dawson et al., 2010).

Despite past research on gender differences in internalizing disorders, previous literature has not examined gender differences in specific scales like the MMPI-2-RF ANP scale. Thus, the current study examined whether gender differences exist on the MMPI-2-RF ANP scale. We hypothesized that men would score higher than women. To achieve this goal, we used an archival dataset of college students who scored higher than average on the MMPI-2-RF Emotional/Internalizing Dysfunction scale. The assumption of normality for an independent samples t-test was violated so, we conducted an independent samples Mann-Whitney U test. The independent samples Mann-Whitney U test indicated that women and men endorsed similar levels of anger proneness, p=.72.

The MMPI-2-RF ANP scale captures negative emotional experiences of anger, but not how individuals act on these emotions. So, gender differences in anger may be better captured by the MMPI-2-RF Aggression scale which measures aggressive behaviors in response to feelings of anger. It may be that women and men experience feelings of anger similarly, but act on these emotions differently. For example, one’s culture and adherence to stereotypes affects the extent to which they engage in stereotype-consistent behaviors (Eagly et al., 2019). Thus, we may have a sample who more loosely adheres to gender stereotypes and therefore engages in fewer stereotype-consistent behaviors. Future research should investigate the effect of stereotypes on anger-related behaviors when other characteristics are accounted for.

Faculty Mentor: Tayla T.C. Lee

Department of Psychological Science

Graduate

The ability to draw generalized inferences is an important component of how readers conceptualize a text. Additionally, a variable such as instructional reading goal (i.e., study vs. entertainment) may change how readers are able to comprehend a text. The purpose of this pilot study will verify two created expository texts and determine whether the assigned reading goal changes readers’ ability to make generalized inferences. This experimental research design of N=280 in the Ball State Psychological Sciences subject pool will be given two expository texts that have been created to successfully let readers draw generalized inferences. Additionally, each participant will read each text with a randomly assigned reader goal (either study or entertainment). It is hypothesized that participants will be able to draw the intended generalization inference 75% of the time for each paragraph of each text. It is also hypothesized that the study goal will predict a higher amount of generalization inferences compared to the entertainment goal.

Faculty Mentors: Dr. Kristin Ritchey and Dr. Thomas Holtgraves

Psychological Science

Graduate

Little research has currently been done focusing on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the mental and emotional processes of people in the United States. The few studies that have been published so far have focused on self-report measures to analyze the impact (Son et al., 2020; Taylor et al., 2020). While these publications are a good first step, more research needs to be done using methods controlling for the bias often found in self-report data. As very research has been used with naturally occurring data, the present study focuses on this approach.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Thomas Holtgraves

Psychological Science

Undergraduate