Oral Session V: 10:00AM-11:00AM
Abstract Volume and Quick Reference Guide
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AF 209 A
Communication Studies
10:00am-10:20am
Consumption of Horror Media and Fear of Reality
Presenter(s): Catthy Ha, Belle Kunzmann
Advisor(s): Dr. Austin Lee
Research on the psychology of horror media suggests that people tend to consume media with simulated threats that they perceive as convincing, depending on their own beliefs regarding horror themes. This research study is built on the cultivation theory, which examines how media can have lasting effects on people. While the original theory is about news consumption, this research will employ it in examining the extent to which individuals are affected by the horror media they consume. One of the main assumptions of this theory, the mean world syndrome, tells us that heightened levels of fear from consuming increasing amounts of horror media can impact viewers’ fears, loneliness, and depression. People often avoid horror media, noting that it will cause them to have more anxiety over the fear of it coming to life. This can include the fear of seeing ghosts, worry that something will jump out in the dark, fear of death, etc. These are the ways that we plan to measure fear of reality. Participants completed a questionnaire including an evaluation of their consumption of horror media, a scale to measure their fears, and the General Anxiety scale. The survey begins with a question that asks them to select what they watched from a list of horror movies and television shows. This is followed by a scale that asks them to gauge their consumption of horror media compared to the average person. These two questions aim to determine if the participant is an avid horror media consumer or not. After this, a list of fears and the General Anxiety scale are built into questions that aim to determine participants’ fears and levels of anxiety. The list of fears chosen is based on a survey that examined the concerns of average Americans. It is expected that there will be significant correlations between increased consumption of horror media and fear of reality.
10:20am-10:40am
TikTok & Mental Health
Presenter(s): Taylor Van-Inouchi, Cierra Robinson, Alexander Reyna, Olivia Brand
Advisor(s): Dr. Austin Lee
The increasing popularity of the social media app, TikTok, has promoted research on the effects TikTok has on its users mental health. The goal of this study is to determine the relationship between excessive TikTok use and its effect on mental health in college students. We hypothesize that excessive exposure to TikTok videos will have a negative impact on its users mental health. This research is conducted through an online self-reported survey, which measures TikTok exposure and mental health. In order to measure TikTok exposure, we used multiple choice questions, which will help us receive an accurate understanding of the participants perception of TikTok and how it applies to TikTok’s overall effect on its users. We measured mental health based on the WHO-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5), which asked participants five positively worded questions that measured one's well-being. It is expected that there will be a negative correlation between TikTok exposure and mental health.
10:40am-11:00am
The Ethical Concerns of Sports Betting
Presenter(s): Gracie Marx, Samuel Speight, Harry Cohen, Jeremy Becker
Advisor(s): Dr. Austin Lee
This study aims to understand the relationship between the increase in sports betting participation and the ethical concerns surrounding it. Sports betting has become very popular in the past year with approximately $57.22 billion dollars wagered in the United States in 2021 (Forbes). Sports bettors can gamble on a series of different platforms such as Sportsbook apps, casinos, and offshore books that are considered not legal. A Sportsbook is defined as an establishment that takes bets on sporting events and pays out winnings. Some of the most popular Sportsbooks are FanDuel, DraftKings and Caesars. With the rise in sports betting participation, the ethical conversations around gambling have increased. We believe that the increase in sports betting participation throughout the world decreases the level of ethical concerns surrounding sports gambling. We are in a sports world now that is dominated by sports betting. Companies have gone all in on the idea that sports betting is the future and will be around for a long time. Ethical concerns surrounding sports betting are triumphed by economic opportunity. For this study, a survey was administered through Qualtrics with a series of questions about sports fandom and sports betting habits. The survey consisted of undergraduate students at a private university in Southern California.
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AF 209B
Communication Studies
10:00am-10:20am
Face Masks and Interpersonal Attraction
Presenter(s): Axel Stone, Jena McGarey, Michael Tinio, Jillian Morris, Jerome Vincent, Daniel Futral
Advisor(s): Dr. Austin Lee
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many researchers have been investigating the interpersonal and social effects of wearing face masks. Our interest is to extend this research on masks by exploring how face masks affect the judgment of interpersonal attractiveness. We predict that wearing a mask will result in higher scores in all three dimensions of interpersonal attraction (physical, social, and task attraction), compared to non-mask wearers due to the partial information effect (Sadr et al., 2019). Participants are expected to find someone more attractive if they see their face as fragmented, blurred, or otherwise partially obstructed. Our online experiment on Qualtrics will employ a post-test only control group design. Our independent variable will be the experimental stimuli (wearing a face mask vs. not wearing a face mask) that will be randomly presented to the participants. Our dependent variable will be J.C. McCroskey’s measures of interpersonal attraction.
Film
10:20am-10:40am
Dodge College Undergraduate Thesis Film Neo’s Cleaning Service
Presenter(s): Yuka Saito, McFloyd Nguyen
Advisor(s): Madeline Warren, Christina Fugate
As the modern working society of any global economy experiences exponential growth in work-centric culture, the integrity of communal and family values degrades as a result. Factors such as lack of leisure and human interaction directly correlate to the declining number of marriages, hence exposing an aging population with no reinforcement. Collectively, as a result, the number of elderly people who live alone continues to expand, and in places such as modern-day Japan, the phenomenon of "lonely death" or kodokushi - 孤独死, an occurrence of people dying alone and remaining undiscovered for a long time, has been a remarkable issue. Neo’s Cleaning Service is a 2022 undergraduate thesis film at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. The story takes place in a dystopian world where retired seniors are deemed as a burden to society. Inspired by the Japanese societal issue of kodokushi (lonely death), the film questions the value of a late person's legacy and casts light on senior citizens who are too often forgotten or neglected by our work-centric culture. The young protagonist, Tim Bauer, is a social cleaner whose job is to dispose of seniors' belongings. The nature of Tim’s job makes him perceive these memorabilia as salvageable junk, despite the fact that this “junk” once belonged to someone who cherished it dearly. Thanks to the unexpected encounter with Paul, a supposedly recalled (taken away) senior citizen, Tim finally takes the time to look at the things he has been mindlessly tossing away, hence undergoing a sense of awareness. The film looks to raise awareness of the current global issue of senior abandonment through a sensationalized lens of science fiction.
Psychology
10:40am-11:00am
Self-Efficacy of Parents of Children with Autism
Presenter(s): Giulia Sarti
Advisor(s): Dr. Desiree Crevecoeur-MacPhail, Dr. Tara Gruenewald
Self-efficacy is the theory developed by Albert Bandura (1977) that describes how people will exert effort into a specific domain if they believe they will be successful. Parents of children with autism encounter challenges that may affect their self-efficacy regarding parenting their child. Variables such as confidence, support from professionals, age of the child, and sex of the child were investigated to determine the impact on the self-efficacy of parents. Through an online survey parents completed questionnaires examining their self-efficacy, confidence, and support they felt from professionals. Expected findings are that parents who are more confident report higher self-efficacy compared to parents who report lower levels of confidence. Parents who feel more supported by professionals also indicate higher levels of confidence. Parents of children who are between the ages of two to 13 years old report higher levels of confidence in their ability to care for their child. Lastly, parents of children who are female also report higher levels of confidence in their ability to be involved in their child’s treatment plan. These findings may offer parents and professionals an awareness of what variables impact parents, and most importantly the child. Assuming statistical significance, more evidence-based practices could be created, and better support can be offered to foster strong parent self-efficacy. Ultimately, having a strong team, of parents and professionals, surrounding a child there is greater opportunity for them to succeed and develop.
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AF 209C
Psychology
10:00am-10:20am
Childhood Trauma and Attachment and Personality in Adulthood
Presenter(s): Lydia Steinhoff
Advisor(s): Dr. Desiree Crevecoeur-MacPhail, Dr. Tara Gruenewald
The pathology of personality and how it is formed, developed, and/or organized has always been a subject of interest in psychology. Of late, researchers are more specifically directing their attention to the connection between early experiences (e.g., childhood trauma) and the development of adult personality disorders. However, less empiric attention has been applied to the psychological mechanisms of the development, nor its influence on dimensional personality traits. Attachment theory can explain both the intrapersonal and interpersonal difficulties commonly found in individuals with personality disorders (Levy et al., 2015). Theory suggests that attachment insecurity is associated with personality pathology. Levy et al. (2015) explained that personality traits are characterized by significant interpersonal challenges, stemming from underlying maladaptive attachment schemas. In some cases, these schemas are transmitted directly from parents who themselves suffer from attachment issues, poor affect regulation, and poor relationship management. As further evidence, Sarkar and Adshead (2018) conducted developmental and neurobiological research which found that disordered personality traits can be understood as disorganization of the capacity for affect regulation, mediated by both early attachments and parenting style. The current research study expanded and established the potential mediating influence of attachment type between specific types of childhood traumatic experiences, attachment styles, and the development of specific adult dimensional personality traits. Undergraduate students within the Department of Psychology at Chapman University were recruited and acted as the participants in this online study. The participants in the study were asked to complete surveys/questionnaires regarding their attachment style, childhood trauma (specific type), and personality traits. It is predicted that adversity/trauma experienced in childhood has a profound effect on attachment style (increasing insecurity) which, in turn, disrupts personality development.
10:20am-10:40am
Educator Experiences and Job Satisfaction
Presenter(s): Kiyono McDaniel
Advisor(s): Dr. Tara Gruenewald, Dr. Desiree Crevecoeur-MacPhail
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, online education was a new technology that many higher education institutions implemented into their curriculum. Online education was, and still continues to be, relatively new, and previous research focused on online education from the student’s perspective. Professors and instructors were often dismissed in this research even though online education, and more specifically online teaching, required many skills that they were unfamiliar with or untrained for. Successful students are active contributors to society in part from educators who are able to share their experiences, ideas, and breadth of knowledge. The current correlational study aimed to gain a better understanding of Chapman University educator perspectives on online education by analyzing job satisfaction, perceived supervisory support, faculty burnout, and job security as they’re related to the impact of stressors from online teaching. The purpose of this research study was to analyze faculty opinions with online teaching given the increasing rate of online learning opportunities. It was expected that instructors who experienced more stressors from online teaching would report lower levels of job satisfaction, perceived supervisory support, and job security, as well as higher levels of burnout. Many stressors that Chapman faculty experienced due to online teaching were not restricted to just teaching at Chapman. A similar experience of distress and discomfort from online teaching, and remote work in general, were applicable across many universities and work sectors. With these results, this study provided insight on how professors experienced online education, what changes could be made for efficient online learning programs in the future, and what university systems could do to support their professors inside and outside of the classroom. The results of this study can guide other institutions that are engaged in online instruction who struggle with similar issues as the faculty at Chapman University.
10:40am-11:00am
Healthcare Satisfaction and Accessibility Among LGBTQ+ College Students
Presenter(s): Debbie Nguyen
Advisor(s): Dr. Tara Gruenewald, Dr. Desiree Crevecoeur-MacPhail
There are many disparities in access to healthcare and medical insurance. LGBTQ+ students are highly vulnerable members of society and often experience more negative health outcomes (Gilbert et al., 2021). Through a lens of Minority Stress Theory (Meyer, 2003), the present study aimed to understand one aspect of the differences between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ students in relation to healthcare experiences. Students 18+ (N = 230) were surveyed through Qualtrics. Participants were asked various demographic questions such as age, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. In addition, participants were asked specifically about their health insurance status, if their providers utilized inclusive language, and their attitudes towards their college/university health center. Validated measures for healthcare satisfaction were included. We anticipate that students will report higher healthcare satisfaction if: a) they have always been insured, b) if they do not identify as LGBTQ+, and c) if they perceive that their providers utilize inclusive language. In addition, we expect that LGBTQ+ students will report a greater likelihood of using their college health center if they are aware that their providers are educated on LGBTQ+ health issues. These findings indicate that there is a disparity between student healthcare experiences. LGBTQ+ students experience lower healthcare satisfaction, indicating that there is a need for more educated healthcare professionals. In addition, uninsurance is a major public health issue, as many individuals cannot access the care they need. It is important to understand these disparities in order to work towards creating systemic change for more equitable and accessible health care.
