Taylor Bolton Defends Dissertation

Taylor Bolton's dissertation defense
Taylor Bolton, a 4th year doctoral student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab, successfully defended her dissertation this week. Taylor’s study utilized structural equation modeling to test a multivariate model designed to improve our understanding of cyber aggression among college students and emerging adults not enrolled in college. She found that anger, sadistic personality traits, and moral disengagement predicted cyber aggression perpetration. Moreover, moral disengagement partially mediated the relationship between sadistic traits and cyber aggression perpetration.

After completing the revisions requested by her committee, Taylor plans to re-examine some of her analyses as we work on streamlining her study for publication. By eliminating some of the variables that contributed little and adding at least one covariate, we hope to end up with a more parsimonious model that will be helpful in understanding cyber aggression.

Congratulations to Taylor on the successful defense of her dissertation!

Taylor is in the process of applying for predoctoral internships next year. Defending her dissertation early will give her more time to focus on the internship experience.

Taylor Bolton Proposes Dissertation

man typing on computer in the dark
Taylor Bolton, a student in her third year of the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program, successfully proposed her dissertation this week. Taylor’s dissertation, “Assessing the effects of psychopathy, sadism, aggression, and boredom proneness on cyber aggression perpetration in emerging adults: Is moral disengagement to blame?” will test a theoretically derived model in which the effects of dark personality traits, aggressiveness, and boredom proneness on cyber aggression will be examined. Moral disengagement will be included as a predicted mediator of these relationships.

Taylor recently completed her master’s project on cyber aggression and is expanding this work into her dissertation. She is one of the first students in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab to focus on electronic aggression, and we are very interested to see what her dissertation research will reveal.

Congratulations to Taylor on the successful dissertation proposal!

Taylor Nocera-Bolton Completes Master's Project

Taylor Nocera-Bolton
Taylor Nocera-Bolton, a master’s student who has been working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab and will be entering the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program in the Fall, has successfully completed her master’s project. Taylor examined a number of dark personality variables in the prediction of cyber aggression among college students. In addition to generating useful information that will guide the lab’s future study of cyber aggression, Taylor’s work led to a poster at the Southeastern Psychological Association in March and a manuscript we plan to submit for publication very soon.

What is a master’s project? When students with master’s degrees who did not complete a formal master’s thesis during their master’s program are admitted to the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program, they complete a master’s project before beginning work on their dissertations. A master’s project involves the completion of an independent research project that is similar to a master’s thesis but does not usually involve a thesis committee. These projects provide students with an opportunity to progress through the entire research process before taking on a dissertation. In addition to familiarizing the student with all aspects of research, they provide faculty with a clear sense of the student’s strengths and weaknesses, leading to the identification of appropriate training goals.

Taylor did a fantastic job with her master’s project, and we anticipate that she will have little difficulty transitioning into her dissertation work.

Welcoming Taylor Nocera-Bolton to the Doctoral Program

This announcement is long overdue, but we are pleased to welcome our newest doctoral student for the Fall 2017 term, Taylor Nocera-Bolton. Taylor has already been working with us during her time in the Counseling Psychology master’s program and had plans to pursue her doctorate. We were happy that she decided to apply to our program. As a doctoral student, Taylor plans to continue her research on cyber aggression.

Congratulations to Taylor on the admission!

Dark Personality and Cyber Aggression Presentation Accepted for SEPA

Atlanta Night Skyline Wallpaper
We just had a presentation proposal accepted for the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, which will take place in Atlanta in March. Taylor Bolton a second-year master's student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab, will present research based on her master's project. Taylor's research focuses on the role of dark personality traits in electronic aggression among college students.

One of the challenges in this area of research involves the lack of consensus in how electronic aggression (aka, cyber aggression, cyberbullying) should be defined and measured (Berne et al., 2013). Taylor is using what appears to be one of the better self-report measures available for emerging adults, the Cyberbullying Experiences Survey (Doane et al., 2013). We anticipate that her findings will provide useful information about the relationship between electronic aggression and offline relational aggression and between various dark personality traits and electronic aggression.

Congratulations, Taylor!

Electronic Aggression

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has some information available on the topic of electronic aggression and its connection to youth violence. Since we recently mentioned some of the varying terminology used to describe these behaviors, it seemed important to note that the CDC suggests that electronic aggression is preferred term. They offer the following as their rationale: “Although many different terms-such as cyberbullying, Internet harassment, and Internet bullying-have been used to describe this type of violence, electronic aggression is the term that most accurately captures all types of violence that occur electronically.” This seems appropriate since electronic aggression is probably the broadest and most inclusive of the various terms.

They characterize electronic aggression as an "emerging public health problem" and note it has been linked to a number of problems among youth, including increased victimization, emotional distress, and conduct problems. Finally they provide downloadable resources for educators, parents and caregivers, and researchers.

At the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab, we have just started collecting data for a new study on electronic aggression among college students. We are hoping to learn more about how to measure it effectively and how it relates to some of the dark personality variables we have been studying.

Cyber Aggression Study Planned

No cyberbullying
It goes by many different names (e.g., cyberbullying, cyber aggression, electronic aggression), but the concept will be familiar to anyone who has interacted with others online. Slonje and Smith (2008) referred to a form of aggressive behavior "in which the aggression occurs through modern technological devices, and specifically mobile phones or the internet." Dilmaç (2009) described "an individual or group willfully using information and communication involving electronic technologies to facilitate deliberate and repeated harassment or threat to another individual or group by sending or posting cruel text and/or graphics using technological means."

Consensus definitions of these constructs have been elusive (Zalaquett & Chatters, 2014), and the lack of consistently used and psychometrically sound measures has made it difficult to compare findings across studies. As a result, many basic questions about the nature of cyber aggression remain unanswered.

The lab is planning to begin collecting data soon for a study on cyber aggression. We hope to evaluate one of the more promising measures for assessing this behavior among college students and learn something about its correlates. Given the mounting evidence that these behaviors are associated with a number of adverse correlates for both aggressors and targets (e.g., Beran et al., 2012; Gini & Pozzoli, 2013), we believe the topic is worth investigating.