Psychology Commons^™

Wild And Wonderful: How Both A Local And National Newspaper Framed West Virginia Leading Up To The 2016 Election, Emily Grace Martin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

During the 2016 Presidential election, journalists from all over the country flocked to West Virginia to try to understand the draw to then-candidate Donald Trump. There is a well-documented history of outsiders flooding the state and its surrounding Appalachian states to attempt to make sense of the current political situation, all while operating off of stereotypes and preconceived notions about the people of the Mountain State. This study aims to determine how stereotyping and the concept of framing or othering — when in-groups create out-groups — were used by a local West Virginia paper, as well as a national newspaper …

Adding Insult To Rivalry: Exploring The Discord Communicated Between Rivals, Jennifer L. Harker, Jonathan A. Jensen

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to extend current knowledge regarding rivalry communication among sport consumers to better understand how rivals behave with one another when they communicate.

Design/methodology/approach – This national survey of US sport consumers used a novel approach to explore whether and with whom rivals discuss National Football League (NFL) game outcomes. The survey captured both uniplex and multiplex data by asking respondents to name rival discussants with whom they had recently interacted, and the fan behaviors they exchanged with those named rival discussants.

Findings – Through use of this novel data collection approach, new …

The Dark Tetrad, Social Dominance Orientation, And Online Political Discussion, Cory D. Taylor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Previous literature into online trolling behavior has focused upon the role of the Dark Tetrad and political measures separately. This study extended the existing body of research by examining the relationship between the Dark Tetrad personality traits, social dominance orientation (SDO) and online political trolling in the United States of America. The data was collected using an online questionnaire from American users of Facebook and Reddit in the summer of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter movement, and in the runup to a hotly contested national election. Positive correlations were found between all of the Dark Tetrad traits, …