This is Eddie. Eddie is the manager of the personality lab and watches us to ensure we get all our work done. The lab also consists of Professor Berenson, Waverly, Fabio, and Thea.
Here are some fun facts about us!
Fabio really likes squirrels. He constantly stops to take pictures of them, even while biking.
“I love catching squirrels doing power poses” ~Fabio Lo 2023
Waverly really hopes that Fabio can teach her Portuguese in the remaining three weeks.
Thea plans to secretly evolve into a crab after graduation.
Our Research
How did that make me feel? What am I feeling right now? These are some of the questions we ask ourselves regularly. These questions are related to some of the topics we are studying this summer. Although we all have these questions, people differ in how they are able to respond to them. In the Personality Lab we have developed a study to examine how emotion differentiation relates to self-compassion, emotion socialization, peer support preferences, and positivity culture. We aim to see how each of these topics are interrelated.
Emotion differentiation is one’s ability to identify specifically what emotions they are feeling (Barrett et al., 2001). Emotion differentiation has since been related to the ability to make distinctions between similar emotions. Literature suggests that people’s recognition of their emotions is not a universal experience (Barrett et al.). More specifically, it has been proposed that some people are better able to differentiate their emotions than others (Smidt & Suvak, 2015). Other research has also explored several potential correlations between high emotion differentiation and healthy behaviors. This research suggests that individuals with high emotion differentiation are better able to identify their emotions and thus are more equipped to manage them (Kashdan et al., 2015). Based on Kashdan and others’ research, we hypothesize that people’s ability to differentiate their emotions will be positively correlated with self-compassion. Self-compassion is being kind and understanding towards yourself when faced with adversity, recognizing that everyone has struggles, and accepting that negative thoughts are only a part of you (Neff, 2003).
One factor that may influence self-compassion is how accepting people are of negative thoughts. Positivity culture promotes the message that you must think positively all the time to live a good (happy, healthy, and successful) life. Positivity culture is common on social media (Goodman, 2022). For example, you may have encountered it in social media posts that emphasize manifesting positive thoughts/energies, the ‘law of attraction,’ prosperity gospel, positive affirmations, choosing happiness, etc. We hypothesize that people who are primed with positivity culture will have lower emotion differentiation and self-compassion than those who are not primed. Positivity culture teaches people to suppress their negative emotions and blame themselves for their suffering. Positivity culture is one example of negative emotion socialization.
Emotion socialization is the social cues given to us by our caregivers and peers that teach us what is appropriate when showing emotions (Morris et al., 2007). We plan to examine the role of caregiver emotion socialization on the ability to differentiate and cope with emotions. If a child’s negative emotions are frequently punished, minimized, or ignored by their caregiver, the child may learn to avoid, suppress, and judge their emotions rather than fully experience them, and in turn have more difficulty differentiating and effectively coping with them. We hypothesize that among young adults, the ability to differentiate emotions, self-compassion, and self-reported emotional well-being will be greater among participants who report receiving more supportive emotion socialization by their caregiver when they were growing up.
In adolescence and adulthood, parents’ influence decreases and peers play an increasing role in emotion socialization and coping with emotions (Voile, 2010). As mental health problems have been on the rise among college students there has been increasing interest in peer support as a supplement to professional mental healthcare (Tardif & Stark, 2023). While there are many articles and books about how to be a good listener and a good friend, there is hardly any research indicating whether certain peer support strategies are better than others. When a friend comes to us with an emotional concern, should we suggest solutions? Re-direct their attention to something else? Encourage them to focus on the positives? Or just listen? We aim to determine which strategies are preferred in different scenarios and among people with different characteristics. During previous summers, X-SIG students in Professor Berenson’s lab compared the effectiveness of two kinds of peer support strategies for people high in borderline personality disorder symptoms (Nicolaou et al., 2022). Our study this summer expands this inquiry to consider a more comprehensive range of support strategies among a broader population of young adults. We also hypothesize that what type of support people prefer may differ with their personality traits, such as their ability to differentiate emotions and their self-compassion levels. For example, peer support that validates people’s emotions (expresses that the emotions are understandable and OK to have) may be more important for people with low self-compassion than for people with high self-compassion.
It has been difficult to design our study as some of the topics we are investigating (positivity culture and peer support) do not have much pre-existing empirical literature. Without many established measures and questions, we have had to come up with our own measures, scenarios, and ways to code/analyze data based on the limited literature. For example, since there is almost no prior research on peer support preferences, we are developing a new measure that aims to cover the full range of typical peer support responses. We will use the data we collect this summer on peer support preferences to continue refining and testing our new measure in future studies. Additionally, previous work on the topic of emotion differentiation has mostly utilized intensive longitudinal methodologies, in which participants are repeatedly given a list of emotions (e.g., angry, sad, afraid, ashamed) and asked to numerically rate how strongly they are currently feeling each emotion. This method can be very time consuming because it requires enough data points on each participant to compute an Intraclass Correlation Coefficient as an index of how much the emotions tend to occur together (versus distinctly). In our study, we are adapting a more recently proposed methodology, in which emotion differentiation is measured utilizing an open-ended technique. Instead of rating a fixed list of words, participants name the emotions they are feeling at the moment. We believe that asking participants to write about their emotions is closer to how one would commonly identify their emotions on a day-to-day basis. Thus, we aim to benefit from a new and naturalistic methodology of measuring emotion differentiation to further understand the construct.
Hi everyone! We are a group of psychology majors who are working under Professor Nathalie Goubet in the psychology department. Before we get into the projects we are working on this summer, let us introduce ourselves:
Hi, my name is Anna Garst, and I am a rising senior from Haymarket, Virginia. I am majoring in Psychology and Business, Organization, and Management Studies. On campus, I am the VP of Psi Chi Honor Society, a Leadership Mentor at the Garthwait Leadership Center, and am involved in the Women’s Network and Alpha Delta Pi. After graduation, I hope to go to graduate school or take a gap year to gain more research and practice experience in psychology.
Hi, my name is Esther Ekeh, and I am a rising senior from Livingston, New Jersey. I am majoring in Psychology with a minor in Business. On campus, I am the president of The Brown Nipple Collective, a Leadership Mentor at the Garthwait Leadership Center, and member of Psych P.A.L.S and multicultural ambassador for the Office of Admissions. After graduation, I plan on matriculating to graduate school for clinical psychology or taking a gap year to gain more clinical experience.
Hello! My name is Aleah Ellerbee, and I am a rising senior from Baltimore, Maryland. I am a psychology major with a writing minor. On campus, I am an Admissions Tour Guide, Student Office Assistant at the Alumni/Parent Relations office, a casual Caterer, a member of the BOMB squad (dance team), and I am a part of the social sorority Delta Gamma. After graduation, I am taking a gap year to gain more experience in the psychology field before I start to apply for graduate schools.
This summer we have been working on two different projects. Our first project focuses on children and their parents’ food preferences based on visual images. We know from prior research that children are highly influenced by the way their food and plating style looks. Plates that are arranged in an aesthetic manner tend to be perceived as healthier (Hagan 2021) and as less risky for overall health and survival (Castagna et al. 2021). This sensitivity to plate appearances is also related to a concept, neophobia, defined as the fear of novelty/new foods which can affect a child’s willingness to try foods pre-exposure. This must be distinguished from general pickiness, which is specific to an aversion to foods post-exposure (Lafraire et. al. 2016). Neophobia is particularly important to understand as it plays an important role on children’s overall exposure and openness to explore new foods that can benefit their health and development. In terms of development, research also suggests that elementary school age are particularly susceptible to changes and variability in neophobia. To clarify this concept further, Lafraire et. al. (2016) explain that the most sensitive period for neophobia is ages 2-6. During elementary school years (5-11) is when there is most variability between children’s disgust levels and neophobia based on cognitive and environmental factors, thus providing incentive for us to focus on children in this age bracket for the study.
In addition to neophobia, variability of disgust sensitivity, defined as a sensitivity to sensory stimuli causing fear, aversions, and OCD symptoms to food (Brown et. al. 2021) can also impact openness to try new things and likelihood to be influenced by visual appearances of food. These disgust sensitivities could be related to parental sensitivities (Coulthard and Blisste al 2008) or prior negative exposure to a particular food due to biological differences in taste perceptions (Mohd Nor et. al. 2021). For example, some children may be more sensitive to bitterness. Therefore, children may associate a particular food as bad for them. Disgust also plays a particularly interesting role in mixed or separated serving styles. Research has shown preferences toward separated serving styles as a factor of disgust, for people perceive a food they like touching a food they dislike as contaminated (Neilson et. al. 2018). A mixed or separated serving style may also be impacted by neophobia levels, for mixed food may not be as easily identifiable, and thus perceived as new and different.
However, where research is lacking is knowledge of mixed/separated serving styles with elementary age children. There is also minimal evidence of similarities/differences between parents and their children on serving style.
In this project, we are examining 1) how children rate food pictures and how it may be related to disgust and neophobia. Based on previous research, we hypothesized that children and parents would prefer foods that are separated, especially when they have higher levels of disgust and neophobia. We also hypothesized similarities between parents and children.
2) the extent to which elementary school children are sensitive to the aesthetics of food plating. We predicted older children would be more sensitive to aesthetics than younger children. These preferences may also depend on parents’ responses and habits.
3) testing whether children, like adults, have a bias for natural medicines (collaboration with Professor Meier).
This study required writing a protocol for testing the children in person, as well as developing an online Qualtrics survey for the parents. In both studies we present a variety of pictures of plates of food in four categories: mixed, separated, esthetically arranged, and randomly arranged. We also assess neophobia and food disgust sensitivity. Children and parents answer similar questions on their preferences toward each plate, disgust, and neophobia. However, the child scales are adapted to be more child-friendly using pictures and less complex language.
We also prepared the lab space to accommodate children and parents and recruited participants. We advertised the study via the college digest, the PeachJar email service used by local schools, and posted multiple flyers around campus and town such as the YWCA, the Community Theater, and academic buildings.
In the picture, I (Anna) am working with one of our participants! As you can see, our testing room is free of any distractions which could affect the participants’ responses. It is very important that when working with the children we avoid any distractions and keep the language as consistent and simple as possible. It is also important to relate the study to real life examples and take many breaks to help keep the participant engaged. Once he and his mom completed their portions of the study, we debriefed the family, congratulated them, and gave them their Amazon gift cards and certificate for participation! As we are still collecting data for this study, we have not begun data analysis.
For our second project, we are collaborating with Professor Delaney! We are focusing on perceptions of how childhood adversity and experiences of the pandemic as well as resilience may have affected individuals’ functioning today. First, we read papers on resilience, adversity and childhood adversity to get an understanding of the literature and findings on these topics before we can conduct the research. Childhood adversity experiences (also known as ACEs) are exposures to traumatic stressors that occurred before the age of 18. This may include abuse or violence or living with family members who have mental illnesses. The main findings from previous research is that ACEs are linked to physiological and mental health issues. According to an infographic by the CDC, “ At least 5 of the top 10 leading causes of death are associated with ACE’s.”(CDC, 2019). Also, children who had trauma in their childhood are more likely to develop physical health issues (cardiovascular, stroke, etc.) (Heim et al. 2008). Some other fascinating facts surrounding ACEs include that adults tend to want to distance themselves socially from people who have a history of ACEs indicating stigmatizing of vulnerable populations (Purtle et al. 20220 and that the awareness about the ACE is important for early prevention and treatment (Shonkoff et al., 2019).
Resilience is the ability to adapt, bounce back, and recover from stress, adversity, trauma or challenging life experiences. It involves the capacity to maintain a sense of well-being, cope with difficulties, and function effectively despite setbacks. Resilient individuals adapt easily and quickly adjust to stressful situations as well as major life events. In the early days of the pandemic in the US, resilience was identified as a key factor for coping with change, uncertainty, and hardship brought on by the pandemic (Liu et al., 2020). Past research has revealed that resilience was associated with lower career opportunities concerns and fewer academic and career changes (Lytle & Shin, 2022). Even in the midst of a pandemic, psychological factors such as resilience, can serve as protective factors.
Emotional regulation is when a person can evaluate and express their emotions effectively when they come into contact with an emotional disturbance. Emotional regulation is important to analyze in our project because it is a key component to analyzing how individuals use their emotions in stressful situations. According to past research, people with a strong handle on their emotions tend to successfully modify their responses appropriately (Preece et al. 2018) and a person should be able to assess both negative and positive emotions before reacting towards a traumatic event (Gruber et al., 2019). What is also interesting about emotional regulation is that most of the past research focused on the regulation of negative emotions (Gratz & Roemer., 2004). We want our project to add more knowledge of not only regulating negative emotions but also how to manage positive emotions as well.
For this study, we are interested in 1) understanding the relationship between peoples’ resilience and their management of emotions and how they coped during the Covid-19 pandemic, 2) whether childhood adversity may have affected how people coped during the pandemic, and 3) how people’s childhood adversity, resilience skills, and ability to regulate their emotions may drive their ideas about adversity.
We recruited participants from all over the United States, ages 18 and up, and we measured their resilience skills, emotional regulation abilities, and their adverse childhood experiences. We also asked them about how the pandemic impacted them (stress level, social support, diagnostic). In addition, we asked people whether they thought adversity made them and others stronger. All of the measures mentioned above were standardized and numerical scales. Lastly, we added open-ended questions about the impact the pandemic had on peoples’ lives today. We decided that having open-ended questions would give us a more in-depth understanding of participants’ positive and negative experiences. It was important that we didn’t stir them in a certain direction, but made sure they understood that we wanted their own personal experiences of how the pandemic affected who they are today. Overall, we hope this study may help participants learn about the long term risk of childhood adversity, reflect on their management of emotions and to gain new perspectives of what resilience means to people. To that end, we added educational information about these issues at the end of the survey.
In this picture, Professor Goubet is showing Aleah how to analyze a specific table on SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) from a paper about resilience.
We used the survey software called Qualtrics to create the survey and used an online platform to collect data. Once the survey was published, we gained over 100 participants in 1 hour! As of right now, we are currently analyzing the data and interpreting the results to see whether our hypotheses were supported.
Also during our time with X-Sig, we had the opportunity to attend the Association of Psychological Science (APS) conference in Washington D.C. Many of our psychology professors and students presented their research, including Dr. Goubet, Dr. McCall, Dr. Wilson, and Dr. Meier. While the three of us were not presenting, we were able to attend a variety of poster sessions, symposiums, keynote presentations and networking events.
My favorite (Anna) presentation was a keynote which talked about the effects of adversity on development. Specifically, the research showed differences in a child’s molar development based on the adversity they had. My favorite (Esther) presentation was “How Racism Gets Under the Skin” by Briana Brownlow. She talked about racism as a stressor for African Americans. She introduced the biopsychosocial model (Clark and colleagues. 1999) where she explains that experiencing or perceiving racism causes physiological (elevated blood pressure, heart rate, cortisol secretions) and psychological (anxiety, fear) stress responses. These responses are met in effort to cope with these racialized experiences. My favorite (Aleah) presentation was about the meditation pathways of maternal warmth, self regulation and parenting stress. The basis of the presentation surrounded intimate partner violence (IPV). The researcher discussed that IPV included physical, sexual or psychological violence, stalking, aggression from intimate partners, etc. The researchers also discussed the negative impacts of IPV exposure on children and how IPV could relate to the themes of maternal warmth, self regulation and parenting stress. The most interesting outcome that came from the experiment was that children who have experienced PIV in infancy will have low levels of self-regulation (to effectively respond to an emotional situation) in the future as well as maternal IPV not affecting maternal warmth. The presenter emphasized the importance of early intervention of the IPV exposure and positive parenting practices. This research suggests that exposure to IPV from a young age can have detrimental consequences for children as they grow older.
Aleah and Esther were also able to participate in a diversity forum with professors/ researchers who have a minority background. Here are their thoughts about the panel discussion:
Aleah – I think the diversity forum was interesting. The panelists talked about the importance of taking risks in the field. Even though students sometimes gain a sense of imposter syndrome, it does not mean that students do not belong in that classroom or lab. The panelists wanted to instill confidence and faith in us for our future endeavors because they know that we would make a difference one day. What I also liked about the forum was that each of the panelists was able to talk about their different backgrounds and what made it possible for them to continue higher learning education. Every story made me realize that everyone goes through trials and tribulations but that obstacles should not stop yourself from accomplishing your goals. Overall, I think seeing accomplished minorities in the field of psychology provided me with the confidence to want to be heard and to work hard in/outside the classroom so I can be the successful individual I see myself becoming.
Esther – Attending the diversity forum was a very eye opening experience. As I sat in the room it became evident to me that representation plays a significant role in higher education. There were students from diverse backgrounds in attendance. One particular panelist remark caught my attention. She mentioned her struggle with writing graduate school papers and how she didn’t know how to go about it. This information intrigued me because I had always assumed that undergraduate education adequately prepared individuals for the challenges of graduate school. However, as the panelist continued sharing her experiences, I realized that her difficulty was not in her ability to write the papers, but rather in the intimidating nature of her asking for assistance. Navigating an environment where people do not resemble oneself can be a daunting experience, leading individuals to refrain from seeking help or expressing their opinions. Several panelists emphasized the crucial importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in education. They highlighted the significance of having mentors, professors, and administrators who share similar backgrounds. I am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to attend this forum and hear from inspiring individuals.
We would like to thank X-Sig for providing us the funding to help attend the APS convention. We would also like to thank X-Sig for allowing us to do research with the psychology department for the summer. We are truly grateful for the experience!
Cross-Disciplinary Science Institute at Gettysburg College - Summer Research 