I am currently a Professor of Cognitive Analytics at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. You can learn more about my work on my website: https://www.aggieerin.com.
Legislative bodies have very important roles and understanding the psychology of their decision-m... more Legislative bodies have very important roles and understanding the psychology of their decision-making processes is a useful area of study. We add to this area by replicating two previous studies: Abe (2012) and Matsumoto and Hwang (2013) in the context of a legislative body. The present study hypothesized that legislators who support war measures would be externally focused and less cognitively complex in their speeches, while opponents of war measures would be internally focused. Speeches were obtained pertaining to the decisions for the U.S. to take military action in Kosovo, Iraq, and Libya. While we found mixed results depending on the circumstances of a specific conflict, we demonstrate how automated language analysis can be combined with voting records to better understand behavioral action, such as legislative decision.
Typing is a ubiquitous daily action for many individuals; yet, research on how these actions have... more Typing is a ubiquitous daily action for many individuals; yet, research on how these actions have changed our perception of language is limited. One such influence, deemed the QWERTY effect, is an increase in valence ratings for words typed more with the right hand on a traditional keyboard (Jasmin & Casasanto, 2012). Although this finding is intuitively appealing given both right-handed dominance and the smaller number of letters typed with the right hand, an extension and replication of the right-side advantage is warranted. The present paper re-examined the QWERTY effect expanding to other embodied cognition variables (Barsalou, 1999). First, we found that the right-side advantage is replicable to new valence stimuli. Further, when examining expertise, right-side advantage interacted with typing speed and typeability (i.e., alternating hand key presses or finger switches), portraying that both skill and procedural actions play a role in judgment of valence on words.
Götz et al. (2022) argue that small effects are “the indispensable foundation for a cumulative ps... more Götz et al. (2022) argue that small effects are “the indispensable foundation for a cumulative psychological science”. They support their argument by claiming that (i) psychology, like genetics, consists of complex phenomena explained by additive small effects, (ii) psychological research culture rewards large effects, which means small effects are being ignored, and (iii) small effects become meaningful at scale and over time. We rebut these claims with three objections: (i) the analogy between genetics and psychology is misleading, (ii) p-values are the main currency for publication in psychology, meaning that any biases in the literature are (currently) caused by a pressure to publish statistically significant results and not large effects, and (iii) claims regarding small effects as important and consequential must be supported by empirical evidence or, at least, a falsifiable line of reasoning. If accepted uncritically, we believe the arguments of Götz et al. (2022) could be us...
Preregistration has been touted as the solution to the “reproducibility crisis” (Wagenmakers, Wet... more Preregistration has been touted as the solution to the “reproducibility crisis” (Wagenmakers, Wetzels, Borsboom, van der Maas, & Kievit, 2012) and part of the “renaissance” in the social sciences (Nelson, Simmons, & Simonsohn, 2018). For preregistration, researchers describe the study plan before the data is collected or the analyses have been examined. The focus of preregistration has been on solving prediction versus postdiction (i.e., hypothesizing after results are known or HARKING; Kerr, 1998) and negating flexibility in statistical analyses (i.e., p-hacking and questionable research practices; Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011). We suggest that instead of solely focusing on preregistration, researchers should concentrate on adequate plans for research detailing a strong relationship between hypotheses, methods, data, and analyses. While preregistration encourages this process, more effort should focus on the research blueprint to engage in meaningful and, potentially, reprodu...
Research has shown that non-clinical women, particularly those with high body concern, engage in ... more Research has shown that non-clinical women, particularly those with high body concern, engage in frequent body checking behaviors. The purpose of this study was to use ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine the frequency and correlates of body checking behavior, including its association with body image dissatisfaction and negative affect, in non-clinical women with high body concern. Undergraduate female participants with high body concern (n=22) were assessed five times per day for five days via text messages sent to their smart phones. During each assessment, participants reported the number of times they engaged in eight different body checking behaviors and their current level of negative affect and body dissatisfaction. After aggregation, a total of 3064 body checking behaviors were reported by the sample during the five-day period. All participants reported engaging in body checking at least once per day, with a mean of 27.85 checking behaviors per day. Hierarchical...
When students leave their advising appointments, how do they feel? Excited? Disappointed? If advi... more When students leave their advising appointments, how do they feel? Excited? Disappointed? If advisors and students do not share expectations and goals, the student may harbor negative feelings about the advising experience, which have the potential to lead to withdrawal and dissatisfaction. We surveyed students at a large midwestern university to see how students feel about their past and recent advising experiences. Overall, students reported satisfaction with their advising involvement, as average rating scores were high and positive. The measurement scale created to evaluate student satisfaction with advising was analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. This analysis showed two reliable scales: advising and outreach functions, which may be used in the future to evaluate advising programs.
Excessive alcohol consumption is a chronic issue on college campuses nationwide and presents a si... more Excessive alcohol consumption is a chronic issue on college campuses nationwide and presents a significant public health concern. Compared with non-college peers, college students consume alcohol at substantially higher rates and encounter more negative consequences resulting from drinking. This study aimed to examine the role of depression and perceived life meaning in college student drinking, with a focus on potential sex differences. Participants recruited from a large southern university in the United States (mean age = 19.14, SD age = 2.05; 75.7% female; 75.7% Caucasian, 17.2% African American) completed surveys assessing perceived meaning, depression and alcohol use. Results indicated a significant inverse relationship between perceived meaning and alcohol use, while no significant association was found between depression and alcohol use. Although the regression model including perceived meaning and depression was significant in the prediction of alcohol use, it was meaning that accounted for significant variance in alcohol use. When the sample was split by sex, there was an interaction between meaning and depression in predicting male alcohol use. This study expands upon previous research pertaining to college student alcohol use and reveals potentially clinically relevant differences in patterns of association between men and women. Limitations, clinical implications and directions for research are discussed.
This article discusses the development of a short form of the Purpose in Life test (PIL) by using... more This article discusses the development of a short form of the Purpose in Life test (PIL) by using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. We describe why the creation of a useful, separate scale for measuring only meaning in life was desirable. The analyses used here, while normally complex, are broken down into manageable research questions that will show you how to interpret factor analyses and use these results in future endeavors. We first analyzed the original, 20-item version of the Purpose in Life test to determine which items would be the most beneficial at assessing meaning. Those items were examined in a second set of studies to analyze reliability of the proposed short form, which was revealed to be a handy tool for evaluating a person’s perceived meaning in life. Meaning (or lack thereof) is an important concept, which is related to positive and negative variables, such as happiness, life satisfaction, depression, and drug use. You will learn about the challenges a...
Legislative bodies have very important roles and understanding the psychology of their decision-m... more Legislative bodies have very important roles and understanding the psychology of their decision-making processes is a useful area of study. We add to this area by replicating two previous studies: Abe (2012) and Matsumoto and Hwang (2013) in the context of a legislative body. The present study hypothesized that legislators who support war measures would be externally focused and less cognitively complex in their speeches, while opponents of war measures would be internally focused. Speeches were obtained pertaining to the decisions for the U.S. to take military action in Kosovo, Iraq, and Libya. While we found mixed results depending on the circumstances of a specific conflict, we demonstrate how automated language analysis can be combined with voting records to better understand behavioral action, such as legislative decision.
Typing is a ubiquitous daily action for many individuals; yet, research on how these actions have... more Typing is a ubiquitous daily action for many individuals; yet, research on how these actions have changed our perception of language is limited. One such influence, deemed the QWERTY effect, is an increase in valence ratings for words typed more with the right hand on a traditional keyboard (Jasmin & Casasanto, 2012). Although this finding is intuitively appealing given both right-handed dominance and the smaller number of letters typed with the right hand, an extension and replication of the right-side advantage is warranted. The present paper re-examined the QWERTY effect expanding to other embodied cognition variables (Barsalou, 1999). First, we found that the right-side advantage is replicable to new valence stimuli. Further, when examining expertise, right-side advantage interacted with typing speed and typeability (i.e., alternating hand key presses or finger switches), portraying that both skill and procedural actions play a role in judgment of valence on words.
Götz et al. (2022) argue that small effects are “the indispensable foundation for a cumulative ps... more Götz et al. (2022) argue that small effects are “the indispensable foundation for a cumulative psychological science”. They support their argument by claiming that (i) psychology, like genetics, consists of complex phenomena explained by additive small effects, (ii) psychological research culture rewards large effects, which means small effects are being ignored, and (iii) small effects become meaningful at scale and over time. We rebut these claims with three objections: (i) the analogy between genetics and psychology is misleading, (ii) p-values are the main currency for publication in psychology, meaning that any biases in the literature are (currently) caused by a pressure to publish statistically significant results and not large effects, and (iii) claims regarding small effects as important and consequential must be supported by empirical evidence or, at least, a falsifiable line of reasoning. If accepted uncritically, we believe the arguments of Götz et al. (2022) could be us...
Preregistration has been touted as the solution to the “reproducibility crisis” (Wagenmakers, Wet... more Preregistration has been touted as the solution to the “reproducibility crisis” (Wagenmakers, Wetzels, Borsboom, van der Maas, & Kievit, 2012) and part of the “renaissance” in the social sciences (Nelson, Simmons, & Simonsohn, 2018). For preregistration, researchers describe the study plan before the data is collected or the analyses have been examined. The focus of preregistration has been on solving prediction versus postdiction (i.e., hypothesizing after results are known or HARKING; Kerr, 1998) and negating flexibility in statistical analyses (i.e., p-hacking and questionable research practices; Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011). We suggest that instead of solely focusing on preregistration, researchers should concentrate on adequate plans for research detailing a strong relationship between hypotheses, methods, data, and analyses. While preregistration encourages this process, more effort should focus on the research blueprint to engage in meaningful and, potentially, reprodu...
Research has shown that non-clinical women, particularly those with high body concern, engage in ... more Research has shown that non-clinical women, particularly those with high body concern, engage in frequent body checking behaviors. The purpose of this study was to use ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine the frequency and correlates of body checking behavior, including its association with body image dissatisfaction and negative affect, in non-clinical women with high body concern. Undergraduate female participants with high body concern (n=22) were assessed five times per day for five days via text messages sent to their smart phones. During each assessment, participants reported the number of times they engaged in eight different body checking behaviors and their current level of negative affect and body dissatisfaction. After aggregation, a total of 3064 body checking behaviors were reported by the sample during the five-day period. All participants reported engaging in body checking at least once per day, with a mean of 27.85 checking behaviors per day. Hierarchical...
When students leave their advising appointments, how do they feel? Excited? Disappointed? If advi... more When students leave their advising appointments, how do they feel? Excited? Disappointed? If advisors and students do not share expectations and goals, the student may harbor negative feelings about the advising experience, which have the potential to lead to withdrawal and dissatisfaction. We surveyed students at a large midwestern university to see how students feel about their past and recent advising experiences. Overall, students reported satisfaction with their advising involvement, as average rating scores were high and positive. The measurement scale created to evaluate student satisfaction with advising was analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. This analysis showed two reliable scales: advising and outreach functions, which may be used in the future to evaluate advising programs.
Excessive alcohol consumption is a chronic issue on college campuses nationwide and presents a si... more Excessive alcohol consumption is a chronic issue on college campuses nationwide and presents a significant public health concern. Compared with non-college peers, college students consume alcohol at substantially higher rates and encounter more negative consequences resulting from drinking. This study aimed to examine the role of depression and perceived life meaning in college student drinking, with a focus on potential sex differences. Participants recruited from a large southern university in the United States (mean age = 19.14, SD age = 2.05; 75.7% female; 75.7% Caucasian, 17.2% African American) completed surveys assessing perceived meaning, depression and alcohol use. Results indicated a significant inverse relationship between perceived meaning and alcohol use, while no significant association was found between depression and alcohol use. Although the regression model including perceived meaning and depression was significant in the prediction of alcohol use, it was meaning that accounted for significant variance in alcohol use. When the sample was split by sex, there was an interaction between meaning and depression in predicting male alcohol use. This study expands upon previous research pertaining to college student alcohol use and reveals potentially clinically relevant differences in patterns of association between men and women. Limitations, clinical implications and directions for research are discussed.
This article discusses the development of a short form of the Purpose in Life test (PIL) by using... more This article discusses the development of a short form of the Purpose in Life test (PIL) by using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. We describe why the creation of a useful, separate scale for measuring only meaning in life was desirable. The analyses used here, while normally complex, are broken down into manageable research questions that will show you how to interpret factor analyses and use these results in future endeavors. We first analyzed the original, 20-item version of the Purpose in Life test to determine which items would be the most beneficial at assessing meaning. Those items were examined in a second set of studies to analyze reliability of the proposed short form, which was revealed to be a handy tool for evaluating a person’s perceived meaning in life. Meaning (or lack thereof) is an important concept, which is related to positive and negative variables, such as happiness, life satisfaction, depression, and drug use. You will learn about the challenges a...
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