Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Examining Negative Thinking Styles And Thought Control Strategies Within Borderline Personality Disorder, Courtney K. Mason

Theses and Dissertations

Components of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) include emotion and cognitive dysregulation. The Emotional Cascade Model (Selby & Joiner, 2009; Selby et al., 2009) suggests negative affect and the cognitive process of rumination could be interchangeably increasing over time, leading to maladaptive behaviors. The current study evaluated negative thinking styles (i.e., anger rumination, sadness rumination, worry, catastrophizing) and thought control strategies (i.e., brooding, reflection, thought suppression) in relation to BPD traits using path analyses in a college student sample (N = 204). Results indicated anger rumination, sadness rumination, and worry indirectly predicted BPD traits through thought suppression, brooding, and reflection. However, …

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 …

Personality Traits, Religiosity, And Academic Major, Ryan Schmid

Journal of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research

Personality traits are intimately involved with many, if not all, human endeavors, including the pursuit of a college degree. The purpose of this study was to see if there were differences in personality traits amongst academic majors and religiosity levels at Southern Adventist University. It also examined if there were differences in religiosity across academic majors. The differences in academic major and religiosity were compared between both gender and ethnicity. Fifty students from seven academic major categories were given personality and religiosity measures during a class, a LifeGroup, and several arranged meeting times. The results of these measures yielded several …

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 …

Exploring The Role(S) Of Trait Emotional Intelligence & Personality In Help-Seeking Behaviour Among Undergraduate Students, Nikola Cuvalo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Trait emotional intelligence (EI) and the Big Five personality factors represent promising constructs in the individual differences literature that have been investigated in relation to help-seeking behaviour. This quantitative work explores the relationship between individual differences in trait EI, personality, and attitudes toward – as well as future intentions to engage in – help-seeking behaviour among undergraduate students at Western University. Stepwise regression modelling was used to determine which dimensions of personality and trait EI best predicted help-seeking outcomes and whether attitudes toward help-seeking predicted intentions to seek help from university-provided mental health sources. Resultsindicated that several individual facets of …

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. …

The Effect Of Psilocybin On Personality, Ravital Labua

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As classic psychedelics are increasingly legalized and reintroduced into the psychotherapeutic frame, a deeper understanding of their effect on personality and overall wellbeing - as well as their clinical contraindications and potential pitfalls - will prove essential. As a result, this study represents a preliminary investigation into the effect of psilocybin exposure on a range of personality constructs.

Methods: Data was collected through a collaboration with The Psychedelic Society, an organization that legally administers psilocybin truffles in the Netherlands to self-selecting retreat attendees who have been screened for mental health disorders in accordance with Johnson et al.’s (2008) widely accepted …

Improving The Accuracy Of References: The Effects Of Felt Accountability On Personality Ratings, Cullen W. D. Mccurrach

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

References are a useful preemployment assessment for gathering unique personality information about job applicants. However, despite the capacity for external observers to provide valid personality ratings, references tend to be less accurate than similar preemployment assessments. This problem is important to address, since almost all organizations use references of some kind when hiring. This study attempted to improve the accuracy of the personality ratings provided in references by using two novel interventions believed to improve referees’ felt accountability to the hiring organization. These interventions included (a) a more elaborative rating format that asked participants to provide the reasons underlying each …

Predicting Altruism With Personality “Beyond” The Big Five, Sereena Dargan

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Research investigating individual differences in personality and altruistic behaviour has focused predominantly on traits described within the Five-Factor Model (FFM). The objective of the present study was to explore the role of age, gender, and 10 personality traits outside of the common FFM in predicting altruism. An online survey including the Supplementary Personality Inventory (Paunonen, 2002), the Self-Report Altruism Scale (Rushton et al., 1981), and the Compassionate Altruism Scale (O’Connor et al., 2015) was completed by 256 participants. Regression analysis revealed the SPI to account for significant variance in both measures of altruism. Specifically, age, integrity, and risk-taking positively predicted …

Person-Centered Profile Consistency: A Test Of Longitudinal Personality Consistency, Amanda Wright

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Test-retest correlations are a common way to quantify stability in personality. However, these single estimates obscure patterns of consistency as well as individual differences in consistency. Importantly, examining patterns of consistency provides insights into the underlying processes driving personality development. The current study used Bayesian multilevel asymptotic models to examine trends of person-centered consistency using item-level profile correlations across four to nine waves with four datasets (N = 21,616). Results indicated that there were, on average, very high levels of profile consistency across time, highlighting one aspect of the stable nature of personality. There were notable individual differences in …

Individual Differences And Social-Comparative Feedback, Kabir N. Daljeet

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of the overall program of research was to investigate whether there are individual differences that facilitate the acceptance of, or preferences for, social-comparative performance feedback. In doing so, we aimed to establish how individual differences could be leveraged to mitigate the negative reactions that some individuals experience in response to social-comparative feedback (Feeney, Goffin, & Schneider, 2016; Roch et al., 2007). Likewise, we sought to determine whether individual differences were associated with a preference for social-comparative feedback. The results of the first study (N = 255) advanced a novel experimental design and found that, with limited exception, …

Understanding The Importance Of Ambition In The Workplace, Jeff Bean

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Though a common term, ambition is a multifaceted concept that is vastly under researched despite it being labeled necessary for success in the workplace. Of even greater irony is that several sources indicate a significant majority of the reason that employees leave organizations is due to a perceived lack of career development or opportunity, a problem that speaks directly to talent management practices. In light the costly nature of this problem and the presence of sophisticated talent management professionals in large and medium-sized organizations which comprise half or more of the workforce, it causes one to question the assumptions that …

Profiles And Culture: Multi-Level Latent Profiles Based On Personality Traits And Facets And Profile Influences On Performance Outcomes Across Cultures, Weiwei Liu

Theses and Dissertations

Personality research has traditionally adopted a variable-centric approach but recently more studies have adopted a person-centric approach. A person-centric approach can provide additional insights in that it explores for multiple unobserved subgroups within a population and examines the extent to which relationships may differ across subgroups. The current study adds to this growing area in four ways. First, studies have attempted to identify common personality profiles, but results have been inconsistent and very few studies have examined work-relevant samples. The current study addresses this issue based on a large sample that is diverse in terms of industries, occupations, and countries. …

Loneliness Unlocked: Associations With Smartphone Use And Personality, Kristi J. Baerg Macdonald

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Communication and relationships have been dramatically altered because of the rapid adoption of the smartphone in just over a decade. The present study examined loneliness, facets of neuroticism, communication apprehension, emotional support, and nomophobia with individual differences in smartphone use. In addition, the research also looked at differences in loneliness and smartphone use as a result of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Participants (302 women and 290 men) completed a survey of the variables and reported smartphone data over two years. The sample was also divided into pre-COVID-19 (N = 226) and during-COVID-19 (N = 251). …

Finding Teams That Fight Fair: Exploring Trajectories Of Team Conflict Over Time, Natasha E. Ouslis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Disagreements are a reality for teams. Yet how and when teams experience conflict may impact their chances of success. We know relatively little about how team conflict emerges over time, especially for project-based teams. Disagreements over personal topics, logistics, and contributions have been consistently damaging to team performance (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; O’Neill, Allen, & Hastings, 2013). The implications of task-based conflict over time, however, are inconsistent and poorly understood. To resolve these questions, I conducted three studies examining how conflict developed over the lifetimes of 272 engineering design project teams. Study 1 explored the measurement and patterns of …

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 …

Impact Of Warnings On Gamified Personality Assessments, Sabrina Yu

Student Theses and Dissertations

Over the past several years, there has been a growing interest in using gamified and game-based assessments to measure individual differences (e.g., cognitive ability, personality) in both research and selection contexts. This interest, in part, stems from the research showing that gamified assessments are associated with more positive candidate reactions to selection processes and the potential to mitigate faking on personality assessments. To date, little research has examined the impact of gamification on faking overall and little research has combined gamification with a more traditional method of mitigating faking on personality assessments such as warnings. The purpose of this study …

Job Seekers’ Impression Management On Facebook: Scale Development, Antecedents, And Outcomes, Vanessa Myers, Jennifer P. B. Price, Nicolas Roulin, Alexandra Duval, Shayda Sobhani

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Many organizations rely on social media like Facebook as a screening or selection tool; however, research still largely lags behind practice. For instance, little is known about how individuals are strategically utilizing their Facebook profile while applying for jobs. This research examines job seekers’ impression management (IM) tactics on Facebook, personality traits associated with IM use, and associations between IM and job-search outcomes. Results from two complementary studies demonstrate that job seekers engage in three main Facebook IM tactics: defensive, assertive deceptive, and assertive honest IM. Job seekers lower in Honesty–Humility use more Facebook IM tactics, whereas those higher in …

The Effect Of Organizational Culture On Faking In The Job Interview, Damian Canagasuriam, Nicolas Roulin

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Deceptive impression management (i.e., faking) may alter interviewers’ perceptions of applicants’ qualifications and, consequently, decrease the predictive validity of the job interview. In examining faking antecedents, research has given little attention to situational variables. Using a between-subjects experiment, this research addressed that gap by examining whether organizational culture impacted both the extent to which applicants faked and the manner in which they faked during a job interview. Analyses of variance revealed that organizational culture did not affect the extent to which applicants faked. However, when taking into account applicants’ perceptions of the ideal candidate, organizational culture was found to indirectly …

Identifying Faking On Forced-Choice Personality Items Using Mouse Tracking, Irina Kuzmich, Charles Scherbaum

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

This research utilizes mouse tracking as a potential behavioral method to examine cognitive processes underlying faking on forced-choice personality inventories. Mouse tracking is a method from social categorization research that captures a variety of metrics related to motor movements, which are linked to cognitive processing. To explore the utility of this method, we examined differences in the mouse tracking metrics of those instructed to respond honestly or to fake. Our findings show that there is a distinguishable difference in the behavioral response of those who are faking when responding to pairs of personality descriptors presented in a forced-choice format compared …

A New Investigation Of Fake Resistance Of A Multidimensional Forced-Choice Measure: An Application Of Differential Item/Test Functioning, Philseok Lee, Seang-Hwane Joo

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

To address faking issues associated with Likert-type personality measures, multidimensional forced-choice (MFC) measures have recently come to light as important components of personnel assessment systems. Despite various efforts to investigate the fake resistance of MFC measures, previous research has mainly focused on the scale mean differences between honest and faking conditions. Given the recent psychometric advancements in MFC measures (e.g., Brown & Maydeu-Olivares, 2011; Stark et al., 2005; Lee et al., 2019; Joo et al., 2019), there is a need to investigate the fake resistance of MFC measures through a new methodological lens. This research investigates the fake resistance of …

Inter-Relationships Among Several Person-Related Attributes In Reading And Metacomprehension: Complexity And Educational Implications, Lin-Miao L. Agler, Larisa K. Alfsen

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Reading is one of the most basic academic skills. An accurate monitor of one’s text comprehension (i.e., metacomprehension) is essential for effective reading as it guides learning and choices of appropriate strategy used to maximize overall understanding. The processes of reading comprehension and metacomprehension are affected by text-related, task-related, and reader- /person-related factors. One of the two purposes of this report is to provide a brief review of consistent research findings on the interrelationships among several person-related variables and the complexity of those associations in reading and metacomprehension. The person variables discussed include personality, motivation, goal orientations, self-regulation, reading strategy …

The Relationship Between Parental Personality, Attachment, And Subjective Well-Being, Mia Nguyen

Psychology | Senior Theses

Parents play a critical role in helping children develop into happy and well-adjusted adults. Factors such as secure attachment, parental rearing behaviors, and parental personality all interact to create a developmental context that impacts a child’s experience. Attachment between parent and child, for instance, is the foundation of later relationships in life. However, a variety of other parent factors including parental rearing behaviors and parenting style can influence attachment (Roelofs et al., 2006). Parenting styles that are nurturing, authoritative, and emotionally involved have not only demonstrated more secure attachments in children but have also been reflective of parents who score …

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 …

Values And Success In Collegiate Athletics, Nathan Shelby Hutchens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The rapid commercialization of intercollegiate sports has changed the landscape of the hiring decisions and methodologies within university-associated athletic departments – especially within the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (DI-FBS) (Wong, 2017). Most notably and recently, the strategies used to hire athletic directors (ADs) have underwent considerable revision – yet successful hires are far from a sure thing. Many strategies include allusions to leadership style, yet leadership styles are as numerous as there are researchers who study them – and are rarely implemented holistically, thus making their assessment and associated outcomes tenuous at best (Peachey et al., 2015). Hambrick and …

Negative Urgency Predicts Maladaptive Coping Strategies, Alec Martin

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Negative urgency is defined as the disposition to act rashly when under distress. This personality subtype is strongly tied to problematic alcohol and substance use, self-harming behaviors, and binge eating following a distressful period (Cyders et al., 2013; Fischer et al., 2004). The current study hypothesized that participants (62.07% Female, M = 19.81, SD = 4.16, 73.28% White, 6.90% Hispanic, 6.90% African American, 3.45% Native American/Alaskan Native, 3.45% Asian American, 3.45% Middle Eastern, 1.72% Other) who scored high in negative urgency would endorse more maladaptive coping strategies after a negative mood induction (n = 57), compared to a neutral …

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 …

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

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Presentation Location: Weber Center, Room 101

Abstract

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 - …

Investigating Relationships Between Perceived Social Support, Neuroticism, Flexibility, And Covid-19 Related Stress., Patricia Purnell

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Presentation Location: Warming House, Olivet Nazarene University

Abstract

Research suggests that the COVID-19 outbreak has significantly strained mental health and intensified preexisting mental health struggles. Amid the pandemic and the mental strain associated with it, many are concerned with which individuals seem to be struggling with stress related to COVID-19 the most. Specifically, there has been a call for research to incorporate several risk factors and contemplate the significance of flexibility. Therefore, this project will examine if the personality and environmental variables of psychological flexibility, neuroticism, and perceived social support are related to COVID-19 related stress. Olivet Nazarene University …