Psychology Commons^™

Charismatic Leadership And Vulnerability: A Comprehensive Study Of Cult Dynamics, Danielle Santana Denrich

Psychology Presentations

The term "cult" has various definitions in academic discourse, including religious or quasi-religious groups and small, ideologically aligned communities. This paper explores the complexity of the term, its alternative labels, and the influence of media portrayal on public perception. It examines cult leaders' attributes, focusing on the "dark triad" personality traits—narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy—and their manifestation in charismatic leaders. The functionality of cults is scrutinized, highlighting their appeal as a familial structure and promises of intellectual, spiritual, and political power. However, the darker side of cult functionality involves manipulative recruitment tactics and thought-stopping techniques. Additionally, the paper examines susceptibility to …

Lifespace Patterns Of College Students High And Low In Personal Intelligence, John D. Mayer

UNH Personality Lab

Personal intelligence (PI) refers to the capacity to accurately reason about personality in oneself and other people. We hypothesize that people who are higher in personal intelligence differ from others in their relationships and behaviors. We conducted a series of theoretically-guided studies to examine how PI is associated with a person’s self-reported activities, interactions, situations, and group memberships: their lifespace. In two archival and three new studies of college students (Ns = 385, 358, 1186, 416, 696, respectively) we first identified 15 short, factor-based scales describing aspects of college students’ lifespace that are potentially relevant to personal intelligence. …

Relationship Between Quality Time, Conscientiousness, And Relationship Satisfaction, Lindsey Edwards, Gavin Mitchell, Talaia Goodman, Emily Cloud, Max Blessinger

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Relationships are challenging, but can the key to relationship satisfaction boil down to understanding your partner's expression of love or simply spending more time together? Quality time, one of the five love languages, has been found to be the most common love language (Mostova et al., 2022). The love language of quality time has previously been associated with higher levels of conscientiousness, a big five personality trait positively correlated with feelings of love, intimacy, and passion (Surijah & Sari, 2018; Engel et al., 2002). The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between levels of conscientiousness and …

What Makes A Good Stage Manager, Laura Garfein

Honors College

The stage manager plays a vital role in the creation of theater performances; they are responsible for ensuring the smooth execution of a show from beginning to end. They are in charge of facilitating communication between all departments, running the technical elements once the show starts, and keeping information organized throughout the entire process. There are several resources that lay out the simple job description and requirements of this role, yet few discuss specific traits that distinguish the best stage managers. Those that do endeavor to go beyond a simple job description come from only the perspective of the stage …

Philosophical Psychopathology And Individuation: The Archetype Of The Self And Rediscovering Personality, Alyc Jordan-Crump Rideout

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Psychopathology has been associated to personality in trait characteristics as a contributing factor to mental illness, but the degree to which personality development as an influence in mental pathologies remains under researched at a phenomenological level. Thus, leaving a significant gap in psychopathological clinical literature on the functional role personality development is associated with psychopathology. In the modern era, the medical symptomology model of mental illness set by the DSM serves as the justification for psychotropic medication prescription as well as the diagnostic criteria for mental pathology but, there is limitations to functional ideals of mental health based off diagnostic …

Does Birth Order Have An Effect On An Individual’S Conscientiousness?, Micah D. Wilson, Ashely Richmond, Emma Sells, Scovs Major, Waldron Collins

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Looking at familial relationships, specifically between sibling dynamics, has been focused on in many different angles in the field of psychology. Psychologists seek to understand the relationships between siblings, and how the relationships affect their bond, personality, and social life. Past studies have shown that siblings do tend to bounce off of each other, such as older sibling control having more of an effect in conflicts rather than in intimacy (Tucker & Updegraff). We hypothesized that the oldest siblings would clean up after themselves or not make a mess, middle children would clean up after themselves, the youngest would make …

The Influence Of Parental Behavior On Emerging Adult Egocentrism, Lilly E. Rogers, Nicole Buttrey, Monica Bennett, Olivia Harris

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Existing research indicates that adolescent egocentrism, people of adolescent age being overly interested in oneself, is influenced by numerous factors, including identity development and parental behavior (Scarfo, 1993). Though it has been shown that this link between perceived parental behavior and adolescent egocentrism exists (Adams & Jones, 1982), research has not yet examined this relationship in emerging adults. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to explore the relationship between parental behavior/support and egocentrism in emerging adults, while controlling for personality. Emerging adult college students (N = 46), completed a Qualtrics survey that measured imaginary audience (a component of …

Reduced Social Contact And Attachment Insecurity As Predictors Of Loneliness During Covid-19: A Two-Month Experience Sampling Study, Katie C. Lewis, Michael J. Roche, Fiona Brown, Jane G. Tillman

Psychology Faculty Publications

The impact of reduced social contact on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic has been identified as a major public health concern. While personality factors such as attachment style have been associated with psychological distress during the pandemic, the longitudinal relevance of these factors and the role of daily social contact in mitigating distress remains poorly understood. This study evaluated the impact of social contact and attachment style on changes in loneliness over an 8-week experience sampling period during the COVID-19 pandemic. A general adult sample (n = 184) recruited online completed measures of psychological distress, attachment, and loneliness via …

Personal Intelligence Is Evident In The Sophistication Of People’S Narratives About Personality, Jayne L. Allen, John D. Mayer

UNH Personality Lab

Personal intelligence concerns the ability to understand personality in oneself and others—including the understanding of motives, socioemotional traits, and abilities. We examined if people’s scores on the ability-based Test of Personal Intelligence (TOPI) would be reflected in their narratives about someone whose personality they had learned about. In a Preliminary Study (N = 220), we collected narratives and open-ended descriptions about their learning. In Study 1 (N = 212), experts rated the respondents’ open-ended narratives for their sophistication about personality, defined as their knowledge and complexity of thought around the topic. Respondents also filled out checklists concerning what they learned …

A Latent Class Analysis Of Personality Traits With Educational Attainment, Tyler Minter

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The five-factor model of personality (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience) is an empirically based personality model that has been utilized in multiple psychological assessments. Recent works have found Block & Block’s (1980) three personality profiles (resilient, overcontrolled, undercontrolled) within the context of the five-factor model. This study performed a latent class analysis using a short FFM assessment from the SAPA project, a free online personality test. The intention of this study was to replicate the three personality profiles within the five-factor model. Four latent classes were included in the final solution. Two of the three personality profiles emerged …

Dispositional Gratitude, Health-Related Factors, And Lipid Profiles In Midlife: A Biomarker Study, Andree Hartanto, Nadyanna M. Majeed, Verity Y. Q. Lua, Joax Wong, Nicole R.Y. Chen

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Dispositional gratitude has emerged in the literature to be associated with many health benefits in measures ranging from self-reported health to biomarkers of cardiovascular risk. However, little is known about the link between dispositional gratitude and lipid profiles. Drawing from the Gratitude and Self-improvement Model that grateful individuals are more likely to strive for actual self-improvement such as engaging in healthy lifestyles, we investigated the relation between dispositional gratitude and serum lipid levels. Participants consisted of 1800 adults from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) 2: Biomarker Project (N= 1054) and MIDUS Refresher: Biomarker Project …

Comparing Online Surveys For Cybersecurity: Sona And Mturk, Anne Wagner, Anna Bakas, Shelia Kennison, Eric Chan-Tin

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

People have many accounts and usually need to create a password for each. They tend to create insecure passwords and re-use passwords, which can lead to compromised data. This research examines if there is a link between personality type and password security among a variety of participants in two groups of participants: SONA and MTurk. Each participant in both surveys answered questions based on password security and their personality type. Our results show that participants in the MTurk survey were more likely to choose a strong password and to exhibit better security behaviors and knowledge than participants in the SONA …

The Relationship Between Neuroticism And Situation Perception, Elizabeth G. Lester, Gigi Emiliani, Keeley Trainer, Kaylianna Mccormick

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Personality traits, in particular neuroticism, can influence the way individuals perceive situations as seen in Rauthmann’s study (2015) that saw consistent perceptions within the same traits. A study by Thomson (2016) found evidence for a relationship between negative perspectives and neuroticism. Additionally, McNulty (2008) saw that neurotic couples tended to have more relationship difficulties due to the negative assumptions. These negative viewpoints and assumptions translate to situation perception. The participants were recruited from Belmont University’s Introduction to Psychological courses. The subjects took two self-reported surveys regarding their personality, particularly anxiety and neuroticism, and were presented with hypothetical situations to see …

Facial Expressions And Emotion Labels Are Separate Initiators Of Trait Inferences From The Face, Anthony Stahelski, Amber Anderson, Nicholas Browitt, Mary Radeke

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Facial inferencing research began with an inadvertent confound. The initial work by Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen identified the six now-classic facial expressions by the emotion labels chosen by most participants: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. These labels have been used by most of the published facial inference research studies over the last 50 years. However, not all participants in these studies labeled the expressions with the same emotions. For example, that some participants labeled scowling faces as disgusted rather than angry was seen in very early research by Silvan Tomkins and Robert McCarty. Given that the same …

Nudging Students To Use Stronger Passwords: A Test Of Big Five Personality-Based Messages, Shelia Kennison, Eric Chan-Tin

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Cybersecurity breaches can occur when one uses an easily hacked password. Prior research has investigated 1) possible steps to encourage users to use strong passwords and 2) how personality is related to users using strong passwords.

We investigated whether personality-based nudging messages based on Big Five traits could nudge people to create stronger passwords (c.f., Jones et al., 2021). We also examined how personal characteristics, such as gender, age, personality traits, password knowledge, attitudes, and behavior, and need for cognition, were related to password strength.

We tested the hypothesis that passwords created following messages matching participants’ personality would be stronger …

Tweets R Us: Predicting Personality From Language And Emoji Use On Twitter, Maxwell Meckling, Sarah Shoup, D. E. Chan-Tin, Shelia Kennison

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The research investigated the suggestion from prior research that language and emojis use on Twitter and other social media platforms can predict users’ personality and gender (Adali et al., 2014; Golbeck et al., 2011; Li et al., 2019; Moreno et al., 2019; Raess, 2018). Some studies have also analyzed Twitter language to identify individuals with specific health conditions (e.g., alcohol recovery, Golbeck, 2012; sleep problems, Suarez et al., 2018).

If strategies to predict Twitter users’ characteristics prove to be successful, future efforts to direct persuasive messages related to recommended practices in public health and/or cybersecurity will be possible. Commercial applications …

Estimating The Associations Between Big Five Personality Traits, Testosterone, And Cortisol, Zachary Sundin, Lester Sim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Objective: Hormones are often conceptualized as biological markers of individual differences and have been associated with a variety of behavioral indicators and characteristics, such as mating behavior or acquiring and maintaining dominance. However, before researchers create strong theoretical models for how hormones modulate individual and social behavior, information on how hormones are associated with dominant models of personality is needed. Although there have been some studies attempting to quantify the associations between personality traits, testosterone, and cortisol, there are many inconsistencies across these studies. Methods: In this registered report, we examined associations between testosterone, cortisol, and Big Five personality traits. …

Impact Of Personality Types And Matching Messaging On Password Strength, Anna Bakas, Anne Wagner, Spencer Johnston, Shelia Kennison, Eric Chan-Tin

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

People often create passwords for their accounts that are insecure. An insecure password is often easy to guess– thus, hackers can easily access their victims’ accounts. It is important for users to know how to create and manage secure passwords so they can better protect themselves from hackers. It is well-known that different users have different personality types, such as Big Five and True Colors. This research examines if there is any link between personality types and password security behavior. Each participant was shown either a matching or mismatching message based on their personality type, and it was measured whether …

The Reliability And Validity Of The Open Enneagram Of Personality Scales, Kayleigh Kastelein

Honors Program Projects

The purpose of this study is to assess the reliability and validity of the 36-item Open Enneagram of Personality Scales (OEPS). Our general hypothesis was that the OEPS would show adequate reliability evidence but not validity evidence. Participants were acquired through a small denominationally affiliated Midwest university, Amazon Mechanical Turk, and social media. Test-retest reliability was done with 249 participants while internal consistency reliability, factor analysis, and correlations with the Big Five Inventory (BFI; John, Donahue, & Kentle) were done using 1039 participants. An average Pearson’s correlation of .68 (range: 0.54 - 0.75) showed inadequate test-retest reliability for the OEPS …

Personality Differences Between College Students With And Without Siblings, Lindsay Hammerle

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The purpose of the current study was to determine the personality differences between college students with siblings and college students without siblings in regard to the Big 5 traits of extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. Additionally, the research aimed to examine whether college students with siblings engage in higher amounts of social comparison than college students without siblings. It was hypothesized that the group with siblings would score higher in extraversion and social comparison engagement, while the group without siblings would score higher in neuroticism and conscientiousness. The Big Five Inventory (BFI) and Social Comparison Scale were used to measure the …

Hidden Framings And Hidden Asymmetries In The Measurement Of Personality: A Combined Lens-Model And Frame-Of-Reference Perspective, Julian Schulze, Stephen G. West, Jan-Philipp Freudenstein, Philipp Schaepers, Patrick Mussel, Michael Eid, Stefan Krumm

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Objective: The symmetry principle and the frame-of-reference perspective have each made contributions to improving the measurement of personality. Although each perspective is valuable in its own right, we argue that even greater improvement can be achieved through the combination of both. Therefore, the goal of the current article was to show the value of a combined lens-model and frame-of-reference perspective. Method We conducted a literature review to summarize relevant research findings that shed light on the interplay of both perspectives and developed an integrative model. Results: Based on the literature review and on theoretical grounds, we argue that a basic …

The Dark Triad: Pathological Personality Traits, Brett S. Burton

Student Publications

People tend to view personality as a light-hearted, positive facet of psychology. However, the fact is that there are many unpleasant and dark aspects to personality. Psychologists have identified a grouping of three dark personality traits in subclinical individuals, which is termed the “Dark Triad”. The Dark Triad includes narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism, which have their own unique twists but all have the basis of callous behavior and manipulation of others. This term was coined by researchers Paulhus and Williams (2002) when they measured these constructs and concluded that they were overlapping, but distinct concepts. The origin of these traits …

Serve-Specific Core Self-Evaluations: A Predictive Validation Study, Brandi Renee Forgione

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Core Self-Evaluations (CSE) is a broad personality trait used by industrial organizational psychologists to predict important organizational outcomes such as job performance and employee satisfaction. CSE comprises four elements: generalized self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control, and neuroticism. Task-specific versions of CSE have been proposed to better predict task-specific performance than general CSE. Accordingly, Serve-Specific Core Self- Evaluations (SS-CSE) was adapted specifically to predict serve performance of intercollegiate volleyball players. In this study, I explored the predictive validity of SS-CSE for serve performance by expanding a previous study that used a concurrent validation approach. Results indicated that SS-CSE scores collected pre-season …

Perceptions Of Substance Abuse, Attachment Style, And Personality, Kristina Betz, Patrick Finegan, Jinanne Haddad

Psychology Student Scholarship

There is substantial, empirical research on the bidirectional relationship between personal substance abuse and one’s attachment style and personality traits. For example, insecure attachment and impulsivity correspond with greater substance abuse. However, it is not known whether attachment style and personality traits are related to people’s attitudes towards others’ substance abuse. In a sample of 166 participants, we examined whether attachment and personality showed a similar pattern of results with attitudes towards other people abusing substances as they do with personal substance abuse. Results mostly implicated the same attachment and personality variables, and exploratory analyses suggest that impulsivity is a …

Pay For Performance, Satisfaction And Retention In Longitudinal Crowdsourced Research, Elena M. Auer, Tara S. Behrend, Andrew B. Collmus, Richard N. Landers, Ahleah F. Miles

Psychology Faculty Publications

In the social and cognitive sciences, crowdsourcing provides up to half of all research participants. Despite this popularity, researchers typically do not conceptualize participants accurately, as gig-economy worker-participants. Applying theories of employee motivation and the psychological contract between employees and employers, we hypothesized that pay and pay raises would drive worker-participant satisfaction, performance, and retention in a longitudinal study. In an experiment hiring 359 Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers, we found that initial pay, relative increase of pay over time, and overall pay did not have substantial influence on subsequent performance. However, pay significantly predicted participants' perceived choice, justice perceptions, and …

The Negativity Bias, Revisited: Evidence From Neuroscience Measures And An Individual Differences Approach, Catherine Norris

Psychology Faculty Works

Past research has provided support for the existence of a negativity bias, the tendency for negativity to have a stronger impact than positivity. Theoretically, the negativity bias provides an evolutionary advantage, as it is more critical for survival to avoid a harmful stimulus than to pursue a potentially helpful one. The current paper reviews the theoretical grounding of the negativity bias in the Evaluative Space Model, and presents recent findings using a multilevel approach that further elucidate the mechanisms underlying the negativity bias and underscore the importance of the negativity bias for human functioning.

Personality, Online Learning, And Covid-19, Dareen Christabel, Hannah Fields, Sarah M. Krysl, Mariah Rodriguez

Student Work

While characteristics of in-person learning versus online learning and the impact of personality on academic success have been studied, the nature of these variables in the context of a stressful event like the COVID-19 pandemic remains undetermined. This quantitative correlational survey analysis investigated 133 participants’ prior online learning experience and neuroticism levels, via the Big Five personality test, to examine relationships between those two variables and the variables of perceived learning, change in GPA, and perceived lost learning during COVID-19. Researchers found no significant correlations or effects between any of these variables. Researchers concluded that while the variables in question …

Using Personality-Based Propensity As A Guide For Teaching Practice, Lin-Miao L. Agler, Kelley Stricklin, Larisa K. Alfsen

Faculty Publications

The Big Five-Factor personality traits are examined in the present review. Individual characteristics and personality types may contribute differently to choices of learning strategies and overall cognitive performance. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to provide a brief overview of consistent research findings on personality constructs as predictors of school-related factors, including academic ability, reading and math skills, metacognitive assessments, self-regulatory learning and processing strategies, and students' confidence; and (2) to highlight the applicable value of using personality-related propensities to guide teachers in the classroom. Inter-relationships among personality, cognition, metacognition, self-regulation, and learning outcomes are addressed. More importantly, …

The Effects Of Individual Differences On Employment Incentives, Andrew J. Laginess

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation sought to examine the interaction between employment incentives and various individual differences. The main objectives were to create a taxonomy of incentives, explore how personal characteristics influence individuals’ attraction to different types of incentives, and shed light on how individual differences affect preferences for incentive systems that are tied to performance versus those that are independent of performance. Four studies were conducted to achieve those objectives, utilizing expert ratings and data from over 800 undergraduate students. A preliminary categorization system with 14 types of incentives was developed, which served as a framework for the subsequent exploration of incentive–individual …

Solving Mate Shortages: Lowering Standards, Searching Farther, And Abstaining, Peter K. Jonason, Simone L. Betes, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although much work on mating psychology has focused on mate preferences and responses to desirable sexual and romantic offers, less is known about what happens when individuals face a lack of mating options. We present 2 studies on (hypothetical) compensatory mating tactics. In Study 1 (N = 299), participants were asked to imagine they were struggling to find long-term and short-term mates and we revealed sex differences and context-specific effects consistent with parental investment theory. In Study 2 (N = 282), participants were asked to imagine they had been incapable of finding a short-term and long-term mate for 6 months …