Unmasking Penn Face: Measuring the Phenomenon and Its Relationship to Other Personality Constructs

This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable scale to measure the phenomenon known in the media as “Penn Face”. The scale was simultaneously administered with established measures to gauge its association with personality constructs that were expected to be associated with it (or not). Given that this phenomenon has yet to be empirically investigated, research for scale development relied heavily on the media, internet blogs, and individual student accounts. The finalized measure elicited promising reliability and was correlated with a number of expected personality traits, especially: anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and perfectionism. Our findings suggest that Penn Face is a measurable and potentially dangerous phenomenon that may exist within an undergraduate population

Contain Yourself

I can’t say I’ve ever been known as the most organized person in the world. Likely due to clothing littered around my bed and papers sprawled across my desk, my living space is usually greeted with the phrase, “Well, it definitely looks lived-in.” Feeling fed-up with my clutter and inspired by a bout of Spring Fever, I took my first trip to the The Container Store this past weekend. I was overwhelmed and excited by the immense amount of gadgets and boxes that existed to compartmentalize any and every aspect of my life. They really have it all from jewelry organizers to specially designed coffee filter holders. I found myself extremely comforted by the possibility of having individual boxes to hold all of my worldly possessions so that I may be able to neatly pack them away and only retrieve them when it became necessary. [excerpt

The Peacock Effect: The Influence of the Opposite Sex on Aggressive Behavior

Most widely-accepted models for aggression do not explicitly address an important variable that roots in evolutionary psychology: the presence of a potential mate. The current research investigates whether the presence of an attractive or unattractive member of the opposite sex influences hypothetical aggression. Participants (N = 1035) imagined themselves in front of an attractive or non-attractive member of the opposite sex (accompanied by pictures of corresponding attractiveness levels), and indicate their aggressive intentions after a provocation, or not. Results from the 2(sex) x 2(attractiveness) ANOVA showed that males viewing an image of an attractive female aggressed more when provoked than males viewing a non-attractive female. These effects were absent for females

The Effects of Gender and Self Construal on Perception of Racism

When looking into the idea of if one\u27s gender and their self-construal has an effect on how they perceive racism, we hypothesize that women will take a more interdependent self-construal and men will take a more independent self-construal. Based on how they identify, we believe that those in the interdependent condition will perceive more racism and those in the independent condition will perceive less racism

The Effect of Historical Narratives and Flag Type

This research will examine the effect of mainstream or marginalized historical narratives and the Confederate or American flag on temporal distancing, patriotism, perception of injustice, and assimilationist national identity. We expect that participants exposed to marginalized narratives will indicate higher perceived distance, especially when exposed to the Confederate flag. We expect that participants exposed to mainstream narratives will be highest on blind patriotism, especially when exposed to the American flag. We expect that participants in the American flag marginalized narrative condition would perceive the most racism and would reject more assimilationist conceptions of national identity. For the dependent measures of patriotism, perception of injustice, and national identity, we expect to find differences within the Confederate flag condition according to the meaning participants associate with the Confederate flag. These results will help us understand how people may respond to threatening narratives, how flag exposure may impact that response, and how historical narratives or flags can be presented to increase social justice awareness

A mixed-method analysis of women's intimate partner violence

This mixed-method study aims to elucidate the relevance of gender in women???s intimate partner violence through an ecologically-informed analysis of individual differences in attachment and personality and social contexts. Findings suggest that the Conflict Tactics Scales led to inflated estimates of women???s violence through the misidentification of play as violence and through the categorization of a range of behaviors, called mock-violence, that fall along a continuum from playful to short of meaningfully violent. Study findings also support the position that gender fundamentally shapes the contexts, meanings, and interpretations of women???s aggressive behaviors and is thus central to any analysis of intimate partner violence. Together, these findings lend support to arguments for re-visiting fundamental issues of problem definition and measurement

Personality Profiles of Iditasport Ultra-marathon Participants

Each February, competitors convene in Big Lake, Alaska, to participate in the “Iditasport Human Powered Ultra-Marathon”. Who would attempt this challenging race? Personality might be one factor predicting participation. Iditasport represents a unique athletic event with a distinctive social and psychological climate that might be reflected in the personalities of the participants in many ways. This study was designed to identify the personality profile of Iditasport athletes when compared to normative populations and to explore differences between athletes competing in different race divisions

The Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS)

The BMIS scale is an open-source mood scale consisting of 16 mood-adjectives to which a person responds (e.g., Are you happy ?). The scale can yield measures of overall pleasant-unpleasant mood, arousal-calm mood, and it also can be scored according to positive-tired and negative-calm mood

College Students’ Personality Traits in Relation to Career Readiness

This study examined sixty-one Gettysburg College juniors and seniors (31 males, 30 females) to measure how the Big Five personality traits, and whether a student has Type D characteristics, determines if a student is career ready. We collected data through an in-person survey, with questions about personality traits, ambition, career readiness, and demographics. Regression was used to statistically analyze our first hypothesis. The results found that there is a significant positive association between conscientiousness and career readiness, but there is no significant association between extraversion and career readiness. For the second hypothesis, a mediation model was used. We found that ambition is not a mediator between Type D personality characteristics and career readiness. However, there is a significant positive association between Type D personality traits and career readiness. We explored whether gender plays a role in ambition responses. We concluded that there were no significant differences between males and females

Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS): Scoring Instructions

The BMIS scale is an open-source mood scale consisting of 16 mood-adjectives to which a person responds (e.g., Are you happy ?). The scale can yield measures of overall pleasant-unpleasant mood, arousal-calm mood, and it also can be scored according to positive-tired and negative-calm mood