Mansfield Campus Undergraduate Research Theses and Honors Research Theses
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Undergraduate Research Theses and Honors Research Theses from the Mansfield Campus
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Item Trait Narcissism and Romantic Attraction: An Extension(The Ohio State University, 2023-12) Newton, Sydney; Brunell, AmyThe present study used the Trifurcated Model of Narcissism (Miller et al., 2016) and communal narcissism to extend Campbell's (1999) research on narcissism and romantic attraction. Participants (N = 283) were given a brief survey assessing trait narcissism as well as levels of attraction towards a set of hypothetical potential partners who varied in their descriptions of how perfect, caring, and admiring they were. Results revealed that participants scoring higher in FFNI Extraversion preferred partners who were described as perfect or admiring. Participants scoring higher in FFNI Antagonism revealed less attraction for a caring partner unless the person was described as perfect. Participants scoring higher in FFNI Neuroticism and communal narcissism did not reveal a preference for any targets listed.Item Relationship Quality from the Perception of Romantic Partners of Narcissists(The Ohio State University, 2021-12) Myers, Anna; Brunell, AmyResearch has recently taken a closer look at how narcissists behave in romantic relationships. The goal of this study was to see how relationship quality is perceived by their partners. Participants were asked a) to rate their partners on their levels of narcissism and their impressions about how their partners seek to get their way, b) about their relationship quality, and c) about their own levels of narcissism. Results revealed that perceiving partners as scoring higher on narcissistic rivalry and vulnerable narcissism was generally associated with lower relationship quality, while perceiving the partner as scoring higher on communal narcissism and narcissistic admiration was associated with higher relationship quality. When participants reported that their partners were more narcissistic (with regard to communal narcissism, narcissistic rivalry, and vulnerable narcissism), they reported their partners used less positive means to get their way (such as using manipulation, supplication, bullying, and disengagement). These strategies, in turn, predicted lower quality relationships. These findings help shed light on why relationships with narcissists might not last.Item Patterns of Relationship Behaviors among Narcissists(The Ohio State University, 2020-05) Drotleff, Cheyenne; Brunell, AmyMost of the literature studying narcissism in romantic relationships focuses on grandiose narcissists, leaving little known about how communal and vulnerable narcissists behave and perceive their relationships. This study aimed to see how each facet of narcissism differs in relationships and how experiencing power might impact relationship behaviors. Study 1 assessed various relationship variables in terms of narcissism in two samples: one consisting of a predominately older, mostly married online sample, and the other consisting of mainly younger, casually dating undergraduate students. Study 1 found that communal narcissists reported a more positive perception of their relationships and endorsed more positive behaviors in their relationships such as less attention to alternatives, less negative behaviors in response to conflict, and more commitment than that of grandiose narcissists. Vulnerable narcissists’ patterns of relationship behaviors were similar to those of grandiose narcissists by reporting more attention to alternatives, more negative accommodation and less overall satisfaction. Study 2 examined the extent to which narcissists change their responses to their relationship behaviors when they are led to believe they have power. Study 2 found that power impacted perceived closeness and led to reports of more negative behaviors in dating relationships for both communal and vulnerable narcissists but found no changes in perceived behavior for grandiose narcissists.Item Gender Transgressions as Restorative Forces in Cymbeline(The Ohio State University, 2019-12) Worthington, Ashley; Kolkovich, ElizabethIt is often ignored that the female characters who crossdress in Shakespeare’s plays are also travelers. This study merges two critical frameworks in examination of Shakespeare's late Romance Cymbeline--those of early modern women travelers and performed crossdressing on the Renaissance stage, which allows for a more thorough understanding of the play's heroine. Imogen’s ability to transition between gender identities while physically moving from place to place represents common threats to early modern gender systems, yet her inherent femininity continually shows itself—marginalizing her within the play. She enacts transgressive behavior in theory, but she does not undergo a gender transformation. In Imogen, Shakespeare presents a female character who engages in behavior that early modern audiences would have recognized as rebellious, but her seeming challenges to gender roles are superficial and eventually rejected; in fact, Shakespeare’s depiction of gender transgression in Cymbeline legitimates the binary gender system.Item The Role of Self-affirmation and Self-expansion on State Self-esteem(The Ohio State University, 2015-05) Matthews, Mark; Brunell, AmyThere is a wide variety of research that has examined the extent to which humans use others for self-enhancement. Previous work has shown that people can expand their sense of self by using close others to boost self-esteem. Additionally, self-affirmation theory is a large part of the human psychological immune system, holding the power to boost the self and potentially protect self-esteem. Recent research has found that when facing negative feedback, people have a tendency to inflate their views of significant others in terms of positive characteristics, possibly to make themselves feel better (Brown & Han, 2012). The present research involves a 2 (self-affirmation) x 2 (success vs. failure feedback) x 2 (friend vs. college student rating) factorial design. A significant three-way interaction revealed effects for state self-esteem, but not for partner ratings or task performance. Non-self-affirming participants who received failure feedback had higher self-esteem ratings versus non-self-affirming participants who received failure feedback and rated a college student.Item Gender Differences in Public vs Private Self-Disclosure(The Ohio State University, 2013-05) Prosser, Julie; Fisher, TerriIt is known that women consistently self-disclose at higher rates than men do, but what about public vs. private disclosure of behavior? In this study, groups of up to eight individuals were tested by a male or female assistant. Participants (in either same-sex or mixed-sex groups) were asked to fill out a private, online set of questionnaires (including the Hypergender Ideology scale, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale, a questionnaire of sensitive activities and attitudes, and demographic questions). After all participants were finished with the online questionnaire, the assistant indicated that there was a malfunction with the surveys and ten questions were asked orally, with participants raising their hands if they have engaged in the behavior (such as “Have you had more than three sexual partners?” or “Have you ever used illegal drugs?”). Data were collected from 221 students. Results indicated no support for the hypothesis that women disclose at higher rates than men, nor was support found for the hypothesis that women self-disclose at higher rates publicly while placed in a same-sex group. Contrary to previous research, results showed that public self-disclosure rates were higher within mixed-sex groups compared to same-sex groups. Results also showed that men were more willing to disclose to a male researcher and women were more likely to disclose to a female researcher.Item The Tobiads and the Maccabees: Hellenism and Power in the Ancient Judean Community(The Ohio State University, 2013-05) Huguenin, Justin; Tanner, Heather"The Tobiads and the Maccabees: Hellenism and Power in the Ancient Judean Community" takes a look at the events leading up to the Maccabean revolt and argues that the revolt must be considered as part of a larger struggle within the Judean elite for control that had been going for quite some time. Rather than considering the Maccabean revolt as a purely religious war against Seleucid oppressors, it must be recognized that much of the conflict was in fact a civil war within Judea itself, and was driven by politics as well as religion.Item Impact of Sexual History on Perceptions of Men and Women(The Ohio State University, 2013-05) Kick, Trisha; Fisher, TerriThese two studies incorporated a different approach to researching the sexual double standard through the use of a video medium. The participants in the first study consisted of 98 General Psychology students ages 18-25; 52 men and 54 women. The second study had 190 General Psychology students ages 18-25; 80 men and 110 women. Participants watched one of four possible videos in which the interviewee revealed different levels of sexual activity. Afterwards they were given a sentence fragment completion task to test for priming effects from the videos and were asked to complete measures to evaluate the interviewee and views of individuals’ personal characters. In the second study the participants were also asked to complete a list experiment task. The goal of both studies was to determine whether the traditional sexual double standard is prominent in today’s young adults and if it affects how they view others. While these two studies were unable to find evidence in support of the double standard, researchers are still finding mixed results. It is hoped that these new methodologies can eventually aid in the study of the double standard.Item Frances Burney and Mary Wollstonecraft: Biblical Answers to the 18th Century Gender Crisis(The Ohio State University, 2012-03) Baker, Marissa; Chao, NoelleMy reading of Frances Burney's and Mary Wollstonecraft's works explores their reactions to sentimentality in the late 18th century and focuses on ideas regarding a restoration of traditional manhood. In this thesis, I propose that Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women counteracts the sentimental claim that women were inherently inferior to men by arguing that God created the two sexes equal on a moral and spiritual level. Though published fourteen years before Vindication, Frances Burney's Evelina deals with many of the same issues. Burney's novel Camilla, published four years following Wollstonecraft's Vindication, picks up where Wollstonecraft left off in criticizing sentimentality. Most literary criticism of these texts has resulted in a secular reading, but there is no denying the influence of the Bible and Christian thought on English writers of the eighteenth century. By focusing on Burney and Wollstonecraft's use of Biblical texts, this paper provides an alternative to existing scholarship and engages with ongoing issues surrounding definition of gender roles.Item Frances Burney: A Gothic Novelist(The Ohio State University, 2011-06) Gerhart, Lauren; Chao, NoelleGothic novels by British women writers such as Ann Radcliffe and the Brontё sisters have been the subject of several decades of research. This project focuses on Frances Burney, an influential woman writer of the late eighteenth-century, and aims to present her as a Gothic novelist. Burney is known for her satirical narrative style. However, one finds that Burney is not always satirical; instead, there are violent and passionate scenes in her narration that are more characteristic of Gothic prose than satire. Upon close inspection of Frances Burney’s novels Evelina and Cecilia, one finds many Gothic scenes and descriptions, with abnormal occurrences and strange happenings. Thus, my research project will make an argument for approaching these texts as Gothic novels. The process used to provide evidence for this argument has included research on the Gothic and Frances Burney. Critical works consulted include are The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, which has helped me to create a working definition of the women’s Gothic novel, and Anne William’s Art of Darkness, which has helped me to better understand the Gothic novel and the prose of that time. In my thesis, I provide an overview of the characteristics associated with Gothic fiction. Then I offer readings of Evelina and Cecilia to establish Burney as a Gothic novelist.Item Body Dissatisfaction: The Effects of Body Mass Index on Reactions to Media Images(The Ohio State University, 2011-06) Cooper, Lyndsee; Mazzocco, PhilipMedia images have been shown to affect the way women perceive their selves. The effect body mass index (BMI) has on body dissatisfaction when viewing media images has not been determined. This study used 121 female college students. Participants reported their height and weight before being assigned to one of three image-exposure conditions: moderately-thin female models, ultra-thin female models, or neutral media images. After viewing the images, they then reported their body dissatisfaction. Results indicated increased body dissatisfaction only when participants with moderate BMI viewed thin or ultra-thin models. These findings have implications for advertisement, media literacy programs, and eating disorder preventions.Item The History of the Jamestown Colony: Seventeenth-Century and Modern Interpretations(The Ohio State University, 2009-06) McBee, Sarah; Tanner, HeatherThe Jamestown colony was founded in Virginia in 1607, eventually becoming the first permanent English settlement in North America. Even though this was an important moment in American history, Jamestown nevertheless suffers from an image problem often due to comparisons with other colonies deemed more worthy and successful, such as that of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. The purpose of this study is to analyze what historians have been saying about Jamestown over the four hundred years since its founding, particularly comparing how people were writing about the colony shortly after its establishment and how scholars view the colony today. For example, four primary criticisms of the colony surface repeatedly - that the colony was established in the worst possible location; that the Englishmen were inept and foolish in their dealings with the natives; that the colonists were lazy and unfit for work even in the interests of self-preservation; and that Jamestown was a death trap, with staggering and unnecessary mortality rates. My goal is to understand why Jamestown has been dealt such a poor reputation, both in print and in our collective American consciousness. This study concludes by highlighting some of the important events associated with Jamestown that are often overlooked, such as the first representative government on the continent and the first private land ownership, as well as the archaeology currently underway at the site of James Fort, which is continually changing the traditionally negative views of the colony. Without an accurate understanding of where we came from, we are less capable of knowing where we are headed. It is on this basis that I reevaluate Jamestown utilizing primary documents and archaeological evidence, in the hope that Jamestown can be understood on its own terms.Item Perceptions of discrimination and likely coping strategies upon release among an adult offender population(The Ohio State University, 2005-06) Bodkin, Mark; Winnick, TerriSociologists have long been intrigued by the study of deviant behavior. At one time, sociologists greatly benefited from conducting research in the prisons by testing old theories of deviance and formulating new ones. The purpose of this research is to follow that tradition by examining an adult offender population, focusing on inmate perceptions of discrimination and potential coping strategies to combat the label “ex-con” when released. Labeling theory posits that before a person goes to prison, the person has conceptions of what society thinks about prisoners. When an inmate is sentenced to prison, these beliefs become relevant and lower self-esteem and fear of rejection by others are possible outcomes of the beliefs. These outcomes, in turn, can lead to the inmate choosing to adopt secrecy as a coping strategy to combat the label. We constructed a 55-item questionnaire that measured demographic characteristics and used scales measuring inmates’ perception of discrimination and likely coping strategies adopted from Link et al’s (1987) research on mental patients. The results of this research show that minority inmates perceive less discrimination than whites, and as a result are less likely to adopt secrecy as a coping strategy. Furthermore, those inmates with more social support are also less likely to adopt secrecy. This demonstrates that if a formally labeled inmate already has one label, adding another does not have a significant detrimental effect.