The Factors that Contribute to a Person’s Sports Fandom
Emily Borden
Sports fandom is an interesting topic that has been studied one dimensionally, with either just one sport being analyzed or only one aspect of the fandom being researched. This study incorporates many types of sports and many different aspects of fandom.
Through a survey and video clips, participants were questioned about their loyalty to different kinds of sports. Showing the video studied whether movies and commercials affected novice and expert fans’ decisions about sports. The results indicated that advertising does not influence choices about soda: the videos that were shown had famous athletes promoting Pepsi, but an overwhelming number of people still chose Coke as their soda drink of choice. Another question in the survey studied the relationship between a person’s favorite player’s sport and the sport the person loves to play the most; the results showed that there was a significant correlation between the favorite sport and the sport played by the favorite athlete.
These results are important to marketing companies for sports; it is also important to understand what types of factors influence our decisions for something as large or minimal as choosing a sports team.
The Motivation Behind Facebook and the Need to be Social
Kristen Burke
Despite the fact that a good amount of the population uses Facebook, there has been very little research into why it is used. This study is focused on finding the motivation behind the use of Facebook and the role that a need for affiliation plays.
Participants spent five minutes on Facebook and took a series of four surveys, which measured their motivation, activity, and mood. This series of surveys uncovered the participants’ motivations and the effect that Facebook has on their general happiness. This study found that the group with the lowest average time since the last notification was received had a slightly higher level of happiness, as measured by the general mood survey. The other finding was that there were correlations between status updates and Social Comparison, and also between wall posts and Positive Stimulation.
The Effects of Touch in Nonverbal Communication and Interpersonal Views in a Puzzle Activity
Justina Cassidy
This study explores the concept of touching as a useful form of communication. It placed twenty women participants in a situation in which they must work with another person in a nonverbal context. It tested how well people worked together under either a simple no-touch-required activity versus under restrained conditions in which touching was necessary. Although the touch condition was more difficult, it was predicted that those ten participants would reflect more positively on their experience in the survey filled out after the task, including reports of better teamwork and liking between teammates.
From the results, most participants expressed the difficulty of the touch condition in their answers by denying that it was useful in the task given them and their answers varied little from the control condition group. However, it was found that in the touch condition a significant increase in teamwork ratings occurred, supporting part of the hypothesis.
The Relationship between Dream Narratives and Past Experiences
Kersten Coull
In an extension of research on dreams and their meanings, the present study was done to examine the relevance of dream narratives to waking experiences. Voluntary participation was offered to any undergraduate student at Gordon College. The involvement in this study included recording three dreams and analyzing one of them. Eleven female students participated in the study. After the dream analysis, it was found that there is relevance between dream content and recent past waking life experiences. The conclusion of this study supports earlier research on this subject, but strength could be added to the conclusion if male students participated in a study with the same hypothesis.
The Effects of Smell and Taste on Palatability
Corrie Hopley
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of smell and taste on palatability. Cross-modal sensation (the idea that there is an integration of information from multiple senses) has been explored in previous studies and was further tested in this study.
Twenty-four college students were recruited to participate. They were asked to taste a selection of foods, both with smell and without. They rated the palatability of each food tested. The hypothesis was that when smell was present in the tasting, the palatability of the food would increase.
A study using a repeated-measured one-factor design showed that palatability of food increased with smell for foods that were desirable, like chocolate chip cookies and strawberries. However, undesirable foods (i.e., beets and cauliflower) were not more palatable with smell like predicted.
The Effects of Group Influence on Conformity and Romantic Attraction
Brandon Johnson
Romantic attraction is often looked at as a universal truth, and for years the field of social psychology has worked as identifying those truths that are universal throughout all cultures. However, in terms of the nature vs. nurture debate, social psychology attributes far too much of attraction to the nature side of things, claiming it is all biological.
Solomon Asch’s line experiment set out to test the pressures of social conformity in a non-ambiguous situation. However, something such as romantic attraction is considered non-ambiguous, but it may be more attributed to social factors and pressures than we think. Twenty Gordon College students were tested over twenty trials. Confederates were shown 2 pictures of female faces and with confederates giving predetermined answers, an attempt was made to manipulate and conform to the stated answer of the sole participant. Results showed a 58.8% conformity rate to the stated answers of the confederates. Further research of this topic would lead to a better understanding of how social factors and societal pressures can affect who we are attracted to.
Relationship between Pride and Self-Esteem
We Ro Jung
The relationship between humility and self-esteem was studied. Twelve participants (6 males and 6 females) were divided into an experimental group and control group (3 males and 3 females in each group). Both groups took the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, had a group discussion with two confederates on the subject of telling white lies, and took the Honesty-Humility section of the HEXACO.
The participants in the experimental group experienced a boost in their self-esteem during the discussion. Then the HEXACO scores of the two groups were compared. The hypothesis that self-esteem does not result in an increase in pride was not supported. Due to the lack of participants and the resulting low power, further study is needed.
The Effects of Color on Cognitive Performance
Linnea D. Larsen
The effect that color has on the cognitive functioning of individuals was explored in this study. Twenty-six undergraduate students took the same academic achievement test. The twenty-six students were split into three groups of nine, ten, and seven. One group took the test on white paper (this is the control group), another group on blue paper, and the third on yellow paper (these two are experimental groups).
Although the means of the scores from the two experimental groups were greater than the mean of the scores from the control group, upon computing a one-way Analysis of Variance, the study showed color to have no effect on cognitive performance. Although this experiment did not find color to have an effect on cognitive performance, since there are many studies of color out there that have made discoveries, there are still many areas in which one may study color’s effect.
Envy, Attachment, and Anger Control in Women
Sally Musson
Past research suggests that both men and women struggle with their anger control the most when they marry. Studies also indicate that insecure attachment and jealousy are two predictors of anger in young adults. Considering these two arguments, the current study tested the assumption that insecure attachment to one’s mother and jealousy have a positive correlation with the lack of anger control in young wives.
Measures of anger control, attachment, and jealousy were obtained from a sample of 8 married women who were under the age of forty and had a living mother. Results indicated that secure attachment to one’s mother is slightly more of a predictor to controlling anger than jealousy. However, no real significance was discovered with such a small sample size.
The Effects of Rejection Sensitivity on Close Friends and Strangers
Natasha Romero
Rejection affects every human being and can be strongly felt even through short encounters. In the present study, participants signed up for one of two conditions: stranger or friend group where each participant brought along one close friend. All participants filled out the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire that determined if they felt more hurt by a stranger of a friend; a computer ball-tossing game was played, and a mood survey administered.
It was hypothesized that those rejected from their friends would be more affected, but those with a high rejection sensitivity score would feel equal rejection from a close friend or a stranger. The results showed that those who are more sensitive feel worse regardless of who the other person was, although there was not a large sample size for those high in rejection sensitivity. Those who participated felt more anxiety and depression through interactions from a stranger rather than a close friend, which was contrary to the hypothesis. The sample size was small so further research should be done to see whether this is true.
False Memories in Accordance to Gender Role Stereotypes
Kara Rushford-Emery
This study was conducted at Gordon College with nineteen unmarried female participants. It was hypothesized that participants would remember actions falsely based on gender role stereotypes. The Bem Sex Role Inventory Scale (SRIS) was used to measure participants’ prescriptive attitudes about gender. A set of photographs was used that depicted a handyman and a housewife, some consistent with gender role stereotypes and some not.
Participants were asked individually what they recalled by a survey, and were asked to “recall” actions that were not depicted to observe false memories. Femininity scores from the Bem SRIS and stereotype-consistent false memories were not correlated, which did not support this study’s hypothesis. The most plausible reason is the design of the study. A stronger measure for the degree of gender stereotypical belief on the participant at the beginning of the study might have been more indicative.
The Effects of Ego-Depletion within a Group Setting Compared with an Individual Setting
Matt Van Hamersveld
This experiment looks at self-control as similar to an energy tank which depletes when it is forced to be used. It is also being studied how this differs between groups and individuals. Fourteen students were tested: six within a group and eight individually. Of those being tested individually, three were required to eat a radish while being tempted to eat a cookie. The other three being tested individually were required to each one cookie and no radishes. In the same way, those being tested as a group were required to eat either one cookie or one radish. After the food was consumed, everyone took part in a problem-solving puzzle, separately. Those who spend less time on the puzzle show more self-control depletion.
This study found those who had radishes spent much less time on the problem-solving puzzle than those who ate cookies, contrary to previous research. Those who were tested within a group were largely affected by others within the group.
The Link between Locus of Control and Self-Control
Lynne Apicha Weche
Thirty (19 women, 11 men) undergraduate students from Gordon College took part in a PxE study that investigated the link between locus of control and self-control. Previous studies showed that internals had greater success in quitting smoking and keeping off the weight loss. The Rotter Scale was used to measure locus of control, and self control was operationalized as the time spent on a difficult math problem—difficulty rating of 2 out of 4. The order of presentation of the materials was randomized among the participants, with 15 of them taking the math problem first and the rest taking the survey first.
There were no significant results for the order and the score on the Rotter Scale. Locus of control also had no significant effects on the time taken on the math problem. Because of this, both null hypotheses were retained. The results were attributed to participants thinking that they had indeed solved the problem when they had not and self-control being poorly operationally defined.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
