Research Methods 2008

Name Remembrance: The Remembered's Opinion of the Rememberer
Stacy Ausfeld

Abstract
This study focuses on the effect that a person remembering one's name has on one's opinions of that person. There is little research in this area, an area that is of great importance to the relational aspect of culture and society. It has great implications for psychology as well as for the outside world. The experiment involved two groups which differed in whether or not the researcher used the participant's name. This study was conducted on twenty college undergraduate students, and the results did not show any significant difference in their opinions of the researcher. There were many different confounds and issues with the structure of this study that could have influenced this outcome.

The Correlation between College Stress and Alcohol Use as a Coping Mechanism
Elizabeth Bailey

Abstract:
The goal of this study is to show that academic stress and loneliness of college students directly correlates with the use of alcohol as a coping mechanism. Participants for this study were recruited through inter-campus mail. A 12-item questionnaire was distributed to 150 students containing true and false questions about stress and coping with alcohol. They began the questionnaire. This did not take more than 5 minutes. The data was analyzed using a chi-square test. It was found that students with stress in their family drank more with their friends and that the majority of Gordon students do not drink because they are stressed.

Athleticism Related to Superstitious Beliefs
Brittany Bourgeois

Abstract
Superstitions are everywhere and can be about almost anything. Many people maintain thoughts and beliefs that if they do or do not do a certain thing a certain way, they can predict the outcome of what they started. For example, while athletes get ready for their games, they may eat a certain snack, listen to a certain song, and wear a certain pair of socks. Since humans are thought to be creatures of habit, the athlete gets used to doing the same things, in the same order. If at some point the routine is not done the way it usually is, and the team happens to lose, the athlete usually correlates the loss to the disruption of pre-game routine. 

This study tested the hypothesis that competitive athletes and/or avid sports fans are more superstitious than the general public who are not involved with sports, using a survey created by the researcher. Forty-three undergraduate students from a small liberal arts college took part in this study. There were 12 questions related to sports or superstitious beliefs, along with some demographic questions. The results of the hypothesis are that most participants were not, or at least did not admit to holding general superstitious beliefs, but most did have sport-related activities, and obtained sport-related superstitions.

The Effect of Self-Esteem on Suggestibility in Young Adults
Emily Gingras

Abstract:
Research has found that when an individual is exposed to misleading questions referring to an event he or she witnessed, their memories can in fact be altered. In order to test this, the suggestibility of 20 college students was tested along with their self-esteem level for the purpose of determining if a relationship exists between suggestibility and self-esteem. The subjects were exposed to misleading questions regarding a previously viewed video clip, and were later asked to recall details from the video clip in order to determine the influence of the misleading questions on the recollections. Results found no significant correlation between suggestibility and self-esteem; however, 4 out of 20 of the participants exhibited suggestibility. The lack of significant results can be attributed to the relatively small sample size; a larger sample will likely yield more suggestible participants, and a correlation between suggestibility and self-esteem could potentially be seen in that case.

Affect in Oral Communication and its Interpretation
Jodi-Ann Gordon

Abstract:
This research design is based on emotion and the way its interpretation, even unconsciously, affects the accuracy with which people can identify the speaker of a certain phrase. Coupled with that is the way this emotion is laterally processed by the brain and, the fact that the ear the sound is heard through can also affect the accuracy of participants. While there has been some research done in this area, this study was meant to represent the merging of these two concepts. Participants were expected to find the task of identifying speakers to be easier in conditions with emotion and in the left ear. In this case there was no interaction between emotion and ear, there was, however, higher accuracy in items with emotion as opposed to without. The lack of significance found between ears could be due to the fact that in other studies there has been distracting stimulus in the other ear which lead to the targeted hemisphere to focus more on the input it was receiving.

The Actor-Observer Bias: Can Role-playing be used to Correct Attribution Errors Made about the Homeless?
Anne Henderson

Abstract:
The actor-observer bias has been supported by research for over thirty years, but has not really been tapped into as a tool for correcting errors in attributions, which could be linked to increasing empathy and reducing prejudice. In this study, the effect of role-playing a homeless person was tested on how it affected the proportion of situational vs. dispositional attributions made towards the homeless as a group. There were 20 participants with 10 subjects randomly assigned to role-playing a homeless person, and the other 10 using the same script and playing the other character. Pre and post role-playing surveys each measured the proportion of attributions made, and therefore by comparing the surveys, the effect of the skit was measured. It was found that there was no significant difference between attributions made by the participants in the two roles (a homeless person and a control character). The study was found afterwards to have been designed with low power, and therefore very little chance of actually finding results.

Athletic Participation and its Effects on Academic Performance
Tara Heneghan

Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to determine whether athletic participation improves one's academic performance. Physical activity has long been viewed as beneficial to one's wellbeing. However collegiate level athletics brings with it stress to students, such as time management difficulties, keeping up academically, and the additional stress that comes with the competitive nature of a sports team. Sixteen undergraduate student-athletes at Gordon College were given two questionnaires to complete that ask questions pertaining to stress levels and grade point average in and out of season. Although the results did not reveal a higher GPA in season, other conclusions were found relating to the subject material such as the level of focus during season compared to out of season. More research should be done in this area because of its effect and implication on student athletes.

The Effect of Social Support, Academic Locus of Control, and Distance from Home on Adjustment to College
Brittney Howell

Abstract
Freshmen students (N=39) at a small liberal arts college completed a set of questionnaires. These included measures of academic self-efficacy, level of external locus of control, perceived social support, distance from home, and overall college adjustment. Some scales measured multiple factors, thus the total number of factors evaluated in this study was eleven. It was hypothesized that high levels of social support, an internal locus of control, a high academic self-efficacy, and a healthy perceived distance from home were all factors contributing to a positive adjustment experience. The results for this study supported this hypothesis, in that there proved to be many factors that correlated to a positive adjustment to college. The sample size for this study was not large enough to draw conclusions on the distance from home as a factor in adjustment analysis.  

The Effects of Collegiate Exposures on Young Minds and the Transformation into Adulthood with Established Worldviews
Ivana Moffitt

Abstract
College challenges young people to examine their lives thus far and decide where they want their future to be. This can be a liberating experience for some, but it can also be a frightening decision that determines one's personal success or failure. Upon the completion of college, some individuals transform drastically while a small minority enters in and leaves exactly the same.  This research project was geared toward first year college students. It was a survey study that measured the rate of change in religious beliefs and customs or lack thereof. It took into account the contributing factors such as background information and current religious practices

The Mozart Effect and its Impact on Studying For College Students
Megan Nadeau

Abstract
The phenomenon known as the "Mozart effect" has been widely popularized over the past several years. Studies have shown that when a person is preparing for a task and listening to classical music at the same time, his or her retention rates and memory abilities appear to be higher. Yet there has not been a lot of research done relating this finding to college students' memory when studying for and taking exams. This study looked for a relationship between listening to classical music and memory in an independent groups 1-factor design, by using 28 participants recruited from a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts. The students were placed in 3 different conditions: those who listened to music after studying for the task, those who studied for the task while listening to music, and those who studied for the task without the presence of music. No difference in memory was found between the groups, F (2, 27)=.094, p> .05. Although the music did not have an effect on memory, this could be due to a weakness in the study rather than there not being an actual effect. Throughout the study, it was noticeable that many of the students were not quite interested in answering the questions correctly. Perhaps if the study was conducted in a more serious setting, then results would have been present.

The Effects of a Traumatic Event on One's Self-Esteem and Body Perception
Britany Napolitano

Abstract
The effect of a traumatic event in one's life on self-esteem and body image was examined in a repeated measures factorial design. Forty participants (all female) took a 60 question survey that asked questions regarding past traumatic events, self-esteem, and body image. The data collected was then analyzed using a Pearson correlation. Those with a higher number of traumatic incidences had a lower body image and level of self-esteem, but the relationships were not statistically significant. However, this does show that there is some type of relationship between these two variables and additional research should be done.

A Study of Sports Team Success as Related to Recall of Commercials
Zachary Reynolds

Abstract
This study used a non-equivalent groups 1-factor design to compare commercial recall of fans watching the team they prefer win and fans watching their team lose. Twenty-four participants with a preference for one of two teams watched a half-inning of a baseball game with commercials and were asked to recall the commercials afterwards. The results of a questionnaire given after the footage were analyzed using an independent samples t-test; no significant differences in recall were found between groups. These results conflict with previous research, but these differences can be accounted for by variability in the small samples and untested measure used in the study.

Segmentation/Integration and its Effect on Social Satisfaction:
A Survey of Cross-Domain Interaction and its Application to a Socio-Educational Setting
Stephen Rizzo

Abstract
This study examines how cross-domain interaction affects an individual's satisfaction with his or her social life. More specifically, this research project looks at the relationship between the integration or segmentation of a person's social and academic life and the person's social satisfaction, as well as whether negative spillover from the academic domain affects an individual's relationships with the people that the individual in question is friends or studies with. Twenty-seven undergraduate students were recruited and asked to fill out a series of surveys measuring both relationship satisfaction as well as their level of socio-academic integration. After correcting one of the surveys used because of construct validity concerns, the study found a weak positive correlation between relationship satisfaction and integration, thus contradicting the negative spillover hypothesis and suggesting the possible existence of an "academic support" effect instead.

The Effects of Social Setting on Blushing Intensity and Self-Reported Embarrassment
Alanna Spero

Abstract
The effects of social setting (presence of others vs. solitude) on self-reported feelings of embarrassment and physiological signs of blushing was examined using a between subjects independent samples design.  Twenty students viewed a picture slideshow of embarrassing situations and rated the level of their perceived emotions.  These participants were placed in group and solitary settings, under the hypothesis that the ratings would differ between groups.  In both instances, the participants were also observed and their facial reactions were analyzed using the facial action coding system (FACS).  After analyzing the results, an interaction was found between the physiological responses of the participants and their social setting group.  Therefore, when individuals are placed in a social setting, feelings of embarrassment make them blush more and to a deeper intensity than when in a solitary setting.

A High Self-Monitor's Portrayal on Facebook
Rebekah Stevenson

Abstract
A person who is a high self-monitor cares more about controlling their own self image in light of social situations than most people tend to. High self-monitors have a high concern for social networking and tend to portray themselves in a fashion that would elicit the response that they are well liked, have a plethora of friends, and are the life of the party. They are more involved in projecting this image on Facebook than low self-monitors. In this study a survey was given to thirty-seven intro psychology students to determine high self-monitoring. Of the thirty-seven, only fifteen had public accounts to access information therefore, not enough data was collected to run statistical tests. However, in comparison of the means, there is a difference that suggests that high self-monitors are more likely to have sexual or alcohol related quotes, pictures or gifts on their Facebook Account. This difference proves that this subject matter does need to be attended to in further studies with a greater population.

Emotional Expression: Crying as a Catharsis and a Healthier Lifestyle
Chelsea Wade

Abstract
It was hypothesized that a college student who is more prone to crying will be more likely to cry during a sentimental video. It was expected that a greater amount of empathy will be experienced if students cry, and that men will reveal lesser amounts of empathy than women. Participants (N=47) viewed a sad video in three different group sizes: a group of 22, a group of 16, and a group of 9. It was anticipated that amongst a larger group of students it would be more common to find those that either sobbed or teared up. It was found that immediately after the video, crying did not act as a catharsis, but rather, it increased negative emotions. In addition, women were more comfortable with crying than men. Lastly, one's reaction to the video (whether they teared up, sobbed, or did neither) had no correlation to the amount of empathy experienced.