Psychological Flow and Personality

Flow has been conceptualized as an intrinsically rewarding state of optimal experience that is enjoyable and uplifting. People who experience flow become so absorbed in what they are doing they lose temporal and self-awareness. Flow has been associated with a host of positive emotional and behavioral outcomes. In an effort to understand the determinants of flow, much research has focused on personality traits. For example, several studies have shown that people who are extraverted tend to exhibit high flow propensity, while introverts tend to exhibit relatively less flow propensity. We think this extraversion-flow link is potentially misguided because it does not consider the powerful role that situations can play in determining a wide-range of psychological states, including the extent to which introverts and extraverts experience flow. Our main proposition is that extraverts will tend to experience greater flow in group situations and less flow in solitary situations, while introverts will tend to experience greater flow in solitary situations, and less flow in group situations. We also explored several other potential personality-situation interactions on flow propensity. To test our predictions, we asked participants (N = 195) to complete an online questionnaire. They completed a measure of introversion-extraversion and other personality traits. They then completed two measures of flow (The Flow Questionnaire, the Flow Proneness Questionnaire). Finally, participants indicated the extent to which they had experienced flow in 25 different situations, including social group situations (e.g., attending a concert with friends, going to a party), and solitary situations (e.g., reading an enjoyable book, writing a research paper). Our primary hypotheses were supported. Extraverts were significantly more likely to experience flow in social group situations than in solitary situations, while introverts were significantly more likely to experience flow in solitary situation than in social group situations. We also identified several other interesting personalitysituation interactions on flow propensity. Research suggests that flow is psychologically healthy state. It is therefore useful to identify the variables that determine or predict flow. Rather than emphasizing the role of personality characteristics, which is the dominant focus amongst flow scholars, our research suggests that a concurrent consideration of both personality and situational forces is necessary to fully understand the dynamics of flow.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2017/1005/thumbnail.jp

J-Holomorphic Curves in Rough Almost Complex Structures

A pseudoholomorphic curve, or J-holomorphic curve, is a differentiable map from a Riemann surface to a manifold with almost complex structure J, that satisfies an analogue of the Cauchy-Riemann equations. When J is smooth, pseudoholomorphic curves have well-known regularity and uniqueness properties. I will survey what can happen when J is only continuous or satisfies a Hölder condition

Biased Intergroup Memories and Personality

It has been established that the personality traits of openness and agreeableness are inversely associated with prejudice. We propose that these personality traits also influence group-based memories. In general, people have better memories for a person’s traits when those traits fit a stereotype (e.g., Linda the librarian was quiet). This is called the stereotype-consistency effect. Because people high in openness are less likely to rely on heuristic processing of information (quick, automatic thinking), we hypothesized that they would be less prone to the stereotype-consistency effect. In addition, because highly agreeable people tend to be interpersonally sensitive and non-judgmental, we hypothesized that they also would be less prone to the stereotype consistency effect. To test our predictions, we asked 282 participants to complete established measures of openness and agreeableness. They were then presented with a story about a White American, African American, or Hispanic American person (randomly determined). The person exhibited multiple positive and negative attributes that were stereotypical and non-stereotypical of each ethnic group. Lastly, participants were asked to recall the person’s traits. Our primary hypotheses were supported. Both openness and agreeableness were significant predictors of accurate recall of positive traits associated with outgroup members, and fewer errors when assigning negative stereotypic “decoy” attributes to the target person. Our research demonstrates that some basic personality traits may play a significant role in understanding memory biases associated with social stereotypes. Our research contributes to recent efforts to integrate personality and situational factors that influence intergroup relations

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Contemporary Weird Fiction and the Allegorical Intuition

I call the key cognitive move in processing allegory “gist projection”: the reader extracts a “gist” from the literal level of the text and projects that meaning to an outside target domain. Because the text includes no language directly referring to that target, a reader’s ability to recognize the presence of allegory occurs through an intuitive flash of understanding. In typical allegorical texts, authors spark this allegorical intuition in readers by including disruptive details—for example, references that allude to a situation outside the text, that undermine the reader’s expectations, or that create noticeable discontinuities within the text. Once the allegorical intuition has been activated, the reader begins problem-solving, summarizing the gist of the text and testing its application to hypothesized target domains. But to the extent that authors grasp how allegory works cognitively, they can play with these readerly expectations, as we see in two recent novels that undermine the traditional literary uses of allegorical intuition. In Life of Pi, Yann Martel avoids activating the allegorical intuition by providing naturalistic explanations for details such as the presence of animals on the boat with Pi. Therefore, the reader, who ordinarily might interpret animal characters with reference to allegorical beast fable, instead reads this as a non-allegorical narrative, until the end of the book, when Pi provides an allegorical reading in which the animal characters represent humans. In contrast, in The City and the City, China Mieville plays with the reader’s allegorical intuition by activating it with strange details and then offering no clear target domain for projection. The strangeness of the story, of two cities inhabiting the same space, suggests political allegory, but the novel resists allegorical interpretation. The “weird” experience of reading these books derives in part from the unusual ways the authors manipulate their readers’ allegorical intuitions

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Standardising curved carapace length measurements for leatherback turtles, Dermochelys coriacea, to investigate global patterns in body size

There are two commonly utilised, but distinct, methods for measuring carapace length of leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea). Either the carapace is measured along the central ridge or to the side of the central ridge.Here, we demonstrate that these two measurements produce differing results. Moreover, we formulate a globally-applicable correction factor to standardise between these two measurements. Standardised curved carapace length measurements from leatherback turtles at nesting sites worldwide generally fit into 3 size categories: small (157.5 cm; Indian: Southwest, Indian: Northeast, and Pacific: West