Summer Steely Proposes Thesis

Summer Steely, a doctoral student working in the lab, successfully proposed her master’s thesis yesterday. Summer’s thesis will focus on determining whether moral foundations theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2007) has utility in understanding social aggression in the context of psychopathic personality traits and moral disengagement. Moral foundations theory is a new area of study in the lab, and we are looking forward to learning more about how it may be relevant to many of the areas we have been studying.

Congratulations to Summer on her successful thesis proposal!

Summer Boggs Defends Thesis

Summer Boggs, a doctoral student working in the lab, successfully defended her master’s thesis yesterday. Summer’s thesis, "Social Anxiety and Relational Aggression in the Peer Relationships of College Women," examined the possible role of fear of negative evaluation in relational aggression in a sample of college women, utilizing Social Information Processing theory. Summer's sample proved to be unusually high on every measure of anxiety used, suggesting some limitations in the generalizability of her findings. Contrary to her predictions, fear of negative evaluation was not associated with higher levels of relational aggression. On the other hand, a broader measure of social anxiety did show a relationship with relational aggression, some of which was mediated by hostile attribution bias.

Congratulations to Summer on her successful thesis defense!

Alison Poor Defends Dissertation

Alison Poor, an advanced doctoral student about to begin her predoctoral internship at the Southeast Louisiana Veteran’s Healthcare System in New Orleans, successfully defended her dissertation yesterday. Ali’s dissertation, “Predictors of relational aggression in women across adulthood,” extended the literature on relational aggression among women by testing a moderated mediation model based on social information processing theory (Crick & Dodge, 1994) and comparing 3 developmental groups of women between 18 and 65.

Ali found that the relationship between relational victimization and relational aggression was partially mediated by anger rumination and hostile attribution bias and that normative beliefs about relational aggression moderated some of these relationships. Overall, her findings support the continued relevance of relational aggression among women through middle adulthood.

Congratulations to Ali on an impressive dissertation defense!

Summer Boggs Proposes Thesis

Summer Boggs, a doctoral student working in the lab, successfully proposed her master’s thesis earlier this week. Summer’s thesis aims to advance the literature on relational aggression among college students by focusing on the fear of negative evaluation component of social anxiety, as suggested by Andrews and colleagues’ (2019) application of Social Information Processing theory. She plans to test hostile attribution bias as a mediator and to include empathy as a moderator of at least one predicted relationship. The literature is filled with conflicting findings about the relationship between social anxiety and relational aggression, so we hope that Summer’s project can help to clarify it.

Congratulations to Summer on her successful thesis proposal!

Alison Poor Wins Research Award

We just learned that Alison Poor, an advanced doctoral student in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab, won a Peggy Jean Connor Research Award that will provide her with $960 to support her dissertation. Ali’s dissertation, “Predictors of Relational Aggression in Women Across Adulthood” will use MTurk to recruit participants, and this award should cover her payments to participants.

The Peggy Jean Connor Research Award is given annually by the University of Southern Mississippi’s Committee on Services & Resources for Women to promote research on gender issues by faculty and graduate students and professional development activities for staff. As part of the award, Ali will present her research in March.

Congratulations, Ali!

Alison Poor Proposes Dissertation

Alison Poor, an advanced doctoral student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab at the University of Southern Mississippi, successfully proposed her dissertation this week. Ali’s dissertation aims to learn more about relational aggression and victimization among adult women through the lens of social information processing theory (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Her planned use of an MTurk sample will allow her to test a theoretically derived model across three developmental periods.

Ali’s dissertation builds on her thesis work, which highlighted the role of anger rumination in relational aggression. She is adding a number of other variables that will allow her to test some proposed mediation and moderation relationships in one model, but we are most excited about her plans to conduct invariance testing across age groups. There has been relatively little research on relational aggression among adults, and we should learn more from Ali’s study.

Congratulations to Ali on her successful proposal!

Ali and Savannah Present Posters at Virtual MPA Convention

computer showing virtual conference
Two doctoral students working in the lab, Ali Poor and Savannah Merold, recently presented posters based on their mater’s theses at the Mississippi Psychological Association’s virtual conference. The references for their work, including links to the posters, are below.

Congratulations to Savannah and Ali for disseminating their findings!

Merold, S., Dahlen, E. R., Madson, M. B., & Nicholson, B. C. (2020, September 24-October 9). Psychopathic traits as a moderator of the relationship between social intelligence and relational aggression [Poster session]. 71st Annual Convention of the Mississippi Psychological Association, Bay St. Louis, MS, United States.

Poor, A., Dahlen, E. R., Leuty, M. E., & Nicholson, B. C. (2020, September 24-October 9). Relational aggression and trait anger: The mediating role of anger rumination [Poster session]. 71st Annual Convention of the Mississippi Psychological Association, Bay St. Louis, MS, United States.

Lab Welcomes Hailee Buras

welcome aboard
The Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab at the University of Southern Mississippi is happy to welcome our newest master's student: Hailee Buras. Hailee is completing her B.A. in Psychology at Southern Miss and has been working with us since 2018. She presented some of her work at the 2019 American Psychological Association convention in Chicago and recently completed her honors thesis through the lab, “Anxiety Moderates the Relationship Between Peer Exclusivity and Peer Relational Aggression Among College Students.”

Congratulations to Hailee on her admission to the Counseling Psychology Master's Program! We are looking forward to continuing to work with you.

Alison Poor Defends Thesis

sparkler
Alison Poor, a 2nd year doctoral student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab, successfully defended her master's thesis this week. Her thesis examined trait anger, anger rumination, relational victimization, and vengeance as predictors of relational aggression among college students.

Ali examined two research questions separately due to the expected overlap between some of her variables and differences in the theoretical rationale for the models she tested. First, she found that anger rumination mediated the relationship between trait anger and relational aggression. Second, she found that vengeance did not mediate the relationship between relational victimization and relational aggression, although both relational victimization and vengeance predicted relational aggression.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ali's thesis defense was conducted online through Microsoft Teams. Fortunately, everything worked well and the online format was not an issue.

Congratulations to Ali on a successful thesis defense!

Lab Welcomes Summer Boggs

colorful welcome sign
The Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab is happy to welcome our newest doctoral student: Summer Boggs. Summer was admitted to the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program at the University of Southern Mississippi and will be joining us in the Fall. She comes to us from Kent State University where she earned her bachelor's degree in Psychology and worked with Dr. Ben-Porath.

Summer's research background includes work on self-esteem as a moderator of the relationship between perfectionism and demoralization. She is interested in risk factors for mental illness, including the identification of personality and individual difference variables that may contribute to an understanding relational aggression among emerging adults.

Congratulations to Summer on her admission to the doctoral program at the University of Southern Mississippi! We are looking forward to working with her.

Lab Represented at APA

Philip Stoner at the 2019 APA convention
The Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab was well-represented at the 2019 American Psychological Association convention in Chicago. Philip Stoner, A.J. Qureshi, and Hailee Buras attended the conference, and Philip and Hailee presented posters based on their research.

Philip’s poster was based on his master’s thesis and described his finding that emotion regulation moderated the relationship between vulnerable narcissism and self-criticism. Hailee’s poster, which also utilized data collected as part of Philip’s thesis project but not used in his thesis, described her finding that anxiety moderated the relationship between peer exclusivity and relational aggression among college students.

Hailee is completing her honor’s thesis in the lab, and this was her first professional conference. She received a Discovery Scholar Research Grant from the Honors College at the University of Southern Mississippi, which supported her travel to Chicago.

Congratulations on a successful conference!

Skylar Hicks Defends Dissertation

Skylar Hicks dissertation defense
Skylar Hicks, a 4th-year doctoral student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab, successfully defended her dissertation this week. Her dissertation tested a moderated mediation model in which the relationships of adult attachment, romantic jealousy, mate value, and relationship investment to romantic relational aggression were examined.

Of note, Skylar found that both anxious and avoidant attachment were positively associated with relational aggression and that these associations were mediated by romantic jealousy. There was some evidence that mate value moderated some paths; however, it did not do so in the manner expected. On the other hand, there was no evidence that relationship investment moderated the mediated relationships.

Given that relational aggression in the context of intimate relationships may be a risk factor for intimate partner violence, we believe that research aimed at improving our understanding of this behavior is beneficial. Skylar’s findings suggest that attachment style is likely to be relevant to romantic relational aggression through its relationship with jealousy.

Congratulations to Skylar on her successful dissertation defense!

Skylar will soon begin her predoctoral internship at a Federal Bureau of Prisons site, the Federal Medical Center - Fort Worth in Fort Worth, TX. By completing her dissertation prior to her internship year, she will have more time to focus on the internship experience.

Alison Poor Proposes Thesis

Ali's thesis proposal
Alison Poor, a first-year student in the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program at the University of Southern Mississippi, successfully proposed her master’s thesis this week. Ali’s thesis will examine the role of trait anger, anger rumination, relational victimization, and vengeance in the context of relational aggression among college students.

Ali’s primary focus will be on trait anger, anger rumination, and relational aggression. We expect that anger rumination will mediate the relationship between trait anger and relational aggression, much as it has in previous studies with overt aggression. Although vengeance is being included on more of an exploratory basis to inform future studies of relational victimization, we expect that the relationship between relational victimization and relational aggression may be mediated by vengeful attitudes.

Congratulations to Ali on a successful thesis proposal!

Lab Welcomes Erica Van Overloop

welcome sign
The Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab is happy to welcome our newest doctoral student: Erica Van Overloop. Erica was admitted to the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program at the University of Southern Mississippi and will be joining us in the Fall. She has been working as a youth and family services counselor in Florida since earning her master’s degree from Auburn University - Montgomery.

Erica’s clinical work with children and families sparked an interest in trauma. She has some great ideas for how she might incorporate this interest in our work on relational aggression and victimization.

Congratulations to Erica on her admission to the doctoral program at the University of Southern Mississippi! We are looking forward to working with her.

Savannah Merold Defends Thesis

balloons floating in the air
Savannah Merold, a student in the Counseling Psychology doctoral program at the University of Southern Mississippi, successfully defended her master’s thesis last week. Savannah’s thesis, Psychopathic traits as a moderator of the relationship between social intelligence and relational aggression, examined the relationship of social intelligence, psychopathic personality traits, and other variables to relational aggression in a college student sample.

Social intelligence and psychopathic traits were related to the perpetration of relational aggression, with social intelligence having a negative relationship and psychopathic traits having a positive relationship. Psychopathic traits moderated the relationship between social intelligence and relational aggression so that it became stronger as psychopathic traits increased. Some of Savannah’s findings differed from what was predicted, but since she included some additional variables beyond what we used for her thesis, we hope to run some additional analyses to learn more about the possible role of social intelligence and psychopathic traits in relational aggression.

Congratulations to Savannah on the successful thesis defense!

Skylar Hicks Proposes Dissertation

stack of books
Skylar Hicks, a doctoral student in her fourth year of the program, successfully proposed her dissertation this week. Skylar’s dissertation, Romantic relational aggression among college students: A moderated mediation study of attachment style, romantic jealousy, mate value, and relationship investment, will test a theoretical model aimed at improving our understanding of relational aggression in college students’ romantic relationships.

Skylar completed her master’s thesis in the Spring and has been gaining clinical experience as she prepares to apply for internship this year.

Congratulations to Skylar on completing this important milestone!

Lab Welcomes Alison Poor

Photo of chalkboard with welcome written on it
The Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab is pleased to welcome our newest doctoral student: Alison Poor. Alison will be entering the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program at the University of Southern Mississippi in the Fall and joining us in the lab.

Alison is completing her B.S. in Psychology at Louisiana State University. During her undergraduate career, she was an ASPIRE Scholar and worked in Dr. Paul Frick's Developmental Psychopathology Lab. She is interested in juvenile corrections, working with mentally ill offenders, dark personalities, and relational aggression.

Congratulations to Alison on her admission to the doctoral program! We are looking forward to working with you.

Skylar Hicks Defends Thesis

Photo of book on a table
Skylar Hicks, a third-year student in the Counseling Psychology doctoral program at the University of Southern Mississippi, successfully defended her master’s thesis this week. Skylar’s thesis, The role of emotion regulation in the relationship between trait anger and relational aggression, explored the role of general negative affect, trait anger, and difficulties in emotion regulation in peer relational aggression among college students.

She found that trait anger and difficulties in emotion regulation were positively related to peer relational aggression. That is, students with a higher propensity to experience angry feelings and difficulties regulating their emotions were more likely to report engaging in relationally aggressive behavior in their peer relationships. Contrary to what was expected, difficulties in emotion regulation did not moderate the relationship between trait anger and relational aggression. We will likely conduct additional analyses to determine why this might be the case and how best to incorporate emotion regulation in future studies.

Upcoming Paper on HEXACO, Dark Triad, and Relational Aggression

We just learned that a manuscript based on Niki Knight’s master’s thesis was accepted for publication in Personality and Individual Differences. Congratulations to Niki!

Here’s the abstract from the upcoming paper:

Relational aggression has been linked to many forms of psychological maladjustment. Identifying the personality traits associated with the perpetration of relational aggression offers promise in improving our ability to understand, prevent, and treat relationally aggressive behaviors. Much of the research to date has utilized the Five Factor Model; however, the HEXACO model of personality (Ashton et al., 2004) may offer some advantages in studying aggression. Moreover, the manipulative and often covert nature of relational aggression suggests that the Dark Triad personality traits are likely to be relevant. This study explored the utility of the HEXACO model and Dark Triad in predicting relational aggression in college students’ (N = 442) peer relationships. Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness predicted proactive and reactive relational aggression, and Emotionality also predicted reactive relational aggression. Pathological narcissism and psychopathy predicted proactive and reactive relational aggression while taking respondent gender and the full HEXACO model into account, with vulnerable narcissism and psychopathy serving as positive predictors and grandiose narcissism serving as a negative predictor. Findings support the utility of both the HEXACO and Dark Triad models in understanding peer relational aggression among emerging adults.

The citation is as follows:

Knight, N. M., Dahlen, E. R., Bullock-Yowell, E., & Madson, M. B. (in press). The HEXACO model of personality and Dark Triad in relational aggression. Personality and Individual Differences.

Savannah Merold Proposes Thesis

Savannah Merold's thesis proposal
Savannah Merold, a second-year student in the Counseling Psychology doctoral program at the University of Southern Mississippi, successfully proposed her master’s thesis today. Savannah’s thesis will examine the role of social intelligence and psychopathic personality traits in relational aggression among emerging adults.

There is reason to believe that social and emotional intelligence are positive predictors of relational aggression, and some have suggested that certain levels of these forms of intelligence might be necessary for relational aggression to occur (or at least to be successful). At the same time, there is no reason to think that social or emotional intelligence would be sufficient to produce relational aggression. Thus, we plan to examine the degree to which psychopathic traits might inform our understanding of this relationship.

Congratulations to Savannah on a successful thesis proposal!

Amber Dedeaux at the Mississippi State Research Symposium

Amber Dedeaux at MS State symposium
Pictured here is Amber Dedeaux, a psychology major at the University of Southern Mississippi who has been working with us as an undergraduate research assistant. She has been working closely with Philip Stoner on a project through the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab dealing with jealousy and relationship satisfaction in romantic relational aggression among college women. The data used for this project were collected previously as part of a larger study on relational aggression. Amber and Philip focused on variables that had not yet been examined and found that relationship satisfaction moderated the relationship between cognitive jealousy and relational aggression in intimate partnerships.

Their work led to a poster presentation at Mississippi State University’s Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium (poster available here as a .pdf file). Both Amber and Philip were able to attend the symposium at Mississippi State and found it to be a positive experience. Congratulations to both on their success.

Daniel Deason Accepts Job at Ole Miss

successful job search
Daniel Deason is a lab alumnus who defended his dissertation in 2016. He is nearing the completion of his predoctoral internship at the Counseling Center at the University of Memphis. Daniel just let us know that he has accepted a position as a Staff Psychologist at the Counseling Center at the University of Mississippi.

We are currently working on a paper based on Daniel’s master’s thesis that examines the contribution of social anxiety to the Five Factor Model (Costa & McCrae, 1992) of personality in understanding relational aggression in college students.

Congratulations to Daniel on the new job!

Lab Welcomes Morgan Lowe

The Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab is pleased to welcome Morgan Lowe, a student who will be entering the Counseling Psychology Master’s Program at the University of Southern Mississippi this Fall. Morgan completed her B.S. in psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi, so she is already familiar with the area. Her interests in forensic psychology, relational aggression, and anger make her a great fit for the lab. Her future career plans include working with juvenile offenders, and she hopes to pursue a doctorate in Counseling Psychology.

Congratulations to Morgan on her admission to the master’s program! We are looking forward to working with you.

What is the Dark Triad?

The Dark Triad Image
We are simultaneously drawn to and repelled by sensationalized stories of serial killers and mass murderers, seeking to understand how one of our fellow humans could commit such atrocities against innocent victims. Are these offenders vastly different from us in their genes, early environment, and/or recent life stressors, or are we all capable of such cruelty under the right set of circumstances? We wonder about what dark aspects of the human personality might be involved in such horrific acts. The question of why people violate social norms, commit moral transgressions (e.g., deceit, manipulation), and inflict harm on others has long intrigued psychologists and the public alike.

The Dark Triad refers to three overlapping but distinct personality traits associated with a variety of antisocial and morally transgressive behaviors: psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavelianism (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Considered together, these traits involve emotional coldness, a lack of empathy, the desire for personal advancement at the expense of healthy relationships, grandiosity, and a willingness to manipulate others (Jonason, Lyons, Bethell, & Ross, 2013). Although there are well-known clinical manifestations of psychopathy and narcissism, work on the Dark Triad has emphasized the goal of understanding the subclinical forms of these traits found throughout the population (Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013). That is, most of the Dark Triad research seeks to understand the dark personalities we encounter in our daily lives.

Psychopathy

Psychopathy describes a specific constellation of affective, interpersonal, lifestyle, and behavioral characteristics. These include impulsivity; callous affect; poor reliability in performing various roles; a lack of remorse, empathy, or guilt; and a tendency toward rule violation (Hare, 2003; Jones & Paulhus, 2014). Although psychopathy is associated with criminality and violence (Hare & Neumann, 2009) and is considered to be the most dangerous of the Dark Triad traits, its utility is not restricted to criminal and forensic contexts. For example, subclinical psychopathy predicts a variety of behaviors that are not necessarily criminal (e.g., academic dishonesty, relational aggression, cyber aggression, substance misuse) but still likely to be of interest (Kokkinos, Antoniadou, & Markos, 2014; Williams, Paulhus, & Hare, 2007).

Narcissism

Much like the clinical version (i.e., Narcissistic Personality Disorder), subclinical narcissism involves grandiosity, as well as entitlement and a sense of superiority; however, this grandiose narcissism is only one part of the construct. Another important aspect involves narcissistic vulnerability, which refers to a vulnerable self-concept and efforts at self-enhancement (Morf & Rodenwalt, 2001). While grandiose narcissism tends to be emphasized in much of the Dark Triad literature, vulnerable narcissism appears to be relevant in many areas of emotional and interpersonal functioning. Subclinical narcissism has been linked to aggression (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998), online antisocial behavior (Carpenter, 2012), and a number of other variables of interest.

Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism is probably the least understood of the Dark Triad traits. It refers to a manipulative interpersonal style named for Niccolò Machiavelli (Christie & Geis, 1970). In The Prince (1513), Machiavelli described several behaviors most of us would regard as immoral (e.g., lying, deceit, and even murder) as effective strategies for a ruler to maintain power. Machiavellianism is perhaps best characterized as the perspective that the ends justify the means. People high in Machiavellian traits are described as cynical on morality, focused on personal gain, and willing to manipulate and exploit others to achieve their goals (Jones & Paulhus, 2009). Machiavellian personality traits have been linked to online relational aggression (Abell & Brewer, 2014) and a number of other antisocial behaviors.

At the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab, our primary interest with regard to the Dark Triad traits involves their role in nonclinical populations (i.e., individuals in the community who are not currently receiving treatment for diagnosed personality disorders or other mental health problems) of emerging adults. That is, we are interested in how individual differences in scores on subclinical measures of Dark Triad traits relate to a variety of socially undesirable behaviors (e.g., overt and relational aggression, cyber aggression, dysfunctional anger expression, jealousy, academic dishonesty, aggressive driving) among young adults.

References

Abell, L., & Brewer, G. (2014). Machiavellianism, self-monitoring, self-promotion and relational aggression on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 258-262.

Bushman, B. J. & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 219-229.

Carpenter, C. J. (2012). Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and anti-social behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 482-486.

Christie R. & Geis F. L. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. New York: Academic Press.

Furnham, A., Richards, S. C., & Paulhus, D. L. (2013). The dark triad of personality: A 10 year review. Social and Personality Compass, 7, 199-216.

Hare, R. D. (2003). Manual for the Revised Psychopathy Checklist (2nd Edition). Toronto, ON, Canada: Multi-Health Systems.

Hare, R. D., & Neumann, C. S. (2009). Psychopathy: Assessment and forensic implications. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 54, 791-802.

Jonason, P. K., Lyons, M., Bethell, E. J., & Ross, R. (2013). Different routes to limited empathy in the sexes: Examining the links between the Dark Triad and empathy. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 572-576.

Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2014). Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): A brief measure of dark personality traits. Assessment, 21, 28-41.

Jones, D.N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2009). Machiavellianism. In M.R. Leary & R.H. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior. New York: Guilford.

Kokkinos, C. M., Antoniadou, N., & Markos, A. (2014). Cyber-bullying: An investigation of the psychological profile of university student participants. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 35, 204-214.

Morf, C. C. & Rhodewalt, F. (2001). Unraveling the paradoxes of narcissism: a dynamic self-regulatory processing model. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 4, 177-196.

Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 556-568.

Williams, K. M., Paulhus, D. L. & Hare, R. D. (2007). Capturing the four-factor structure of psychopathy in college students via self-report. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88, 205-219.

Caitlin Clark Defends Dissertation

Caitlin Clark successfully defended her dissertation on Monday. She completed a complex and time-consuming instrument development project, starting with running focus groups for item generation, moving through exploratory factor analysis with one sample, and culminating in a confirmatory factor analysis and validation study with another sample.

In spite of the increased interest received by relational aggression among emerging adults, the lack of psychometrically sound measures appropriate for this age range continues to be an important barrier. Caitlin’s dissertation, Validation of the Young Adult Relational Aggression Scale (YARAS), attempted to confirm the hypothesized factor structure of a new measure as well as assess its reliability and validity in a college student sample.

Although she was able to identify a suitable factor structure, doing so required her to correlate several items and meant that the predicted structure could not technically be confirmed (i.e., the confirmatory procedures became exploratory). Nevertheless, we learned a great deal about the construct and the new measure that should inform future work aimed at refining the measure.

Congratulations to Caitlin on completing this important milestone!

Caitlin is currently completing her predoctoral internship at the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System in Florida and has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship next year at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston.

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!

Daniel Deason Defends Dissertation

Image of man standing in the middle of a road
Daniel Deason successfully defended his dissertation today. He did a fantastic job developing and executing a complex project, and it was great to see him complete this important milestone.

Although the literature on relational aggression among emerging adults has advanced considerably over the last couple decades, surprisingly little is known about the role of culture in general and the nature of relational aggression among LGBT persons in particular. Daniel's dissertation, Hypermasculine, antifeminine: The role of masculine identity in relational aggression among gay men, examined relational aggression and victimization among gay men using Exclusively Masculine Identity Theory (EMIT; Killanski, 2003). Daniel's study utilized structural equation modeling to test models derived from EMIT in an effort to learn more about the possible role of adherence to masculine ideology and sex stereotypically.

The men who participated in Daniel's study differed from those described in some of the previously published research in terms of the masculine and feminine traits they considered desirable. Contrary to what we expected, participants with an exclusively masculine identity (i.e., those who had a more masculine ideal self and a more feminine undesired self) reported lower rates of relational aggression. Thus, while EMIT was useful in predicting relational aggression, the direction of the relationship was not what was anticipated. Daniel's results also suggest that certain domains of masculine ideology may be more useful in predicting relational aggression and victimization than the full EMIT model.

Daniel is currently completing his predoctoral internship at the University of Memphis Counseling Center in Memphis, TN.

Congratulations, Daniel!

Skylar Hicks Proposes Thesis

Skylar Hicks successfully proposed her master's thesis yesterday. Skylar's thesis will examine the relationship between trait anger and the perpetration of relational aggression among college students while taking general negative affect into account and testing the potential role of emotion regulation as a moderator of this relationship.

If emotion regulation moderates the relationship between anger and relational aggression, this may have implications for the treatment of relationally aggressive individuals. For example, such findings might indicate that anger management and other interventions aimed at improving emotion regulation could be beneficial for relationally aggressive young adults.

Skylar is a second-year doctoral student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of New Orleans and entered the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program in the Fall of 2015.

Congratulations to Skylar on the successful proposal!

Niki Knight Defends Master's Thesis

Niki Knight successfully defended her master's thesis today, The HEXACO and Dark Triad in Relational Aggression. Niki examined the HEXACO model of personality and Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) as predictors of proactive and reactive peer relational aggression in a college student sample.

With regard to the HEXACO model, the factors of Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness were positively associated with proactive and reactive relational aggression in peer relationships. Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic traits were positively associated with reactive relational aggression; narcissistic and psychopathic but not Machiavellian traits were positively associated with proactive relational aggression. Taken together, Niki's results supported the utility of both the HEXACO model and the Dark Triad constructs in predicting peer relational aggression among college students.

Niki is a doctoral student in her third year of the program and will soon begin work on her dissertation.

Congratulations to Niki on a successful defense!

Caitlin Clark Proposes Dissertation

Caitlin Clark successfully proposed her dissertation today, an ambitious instrument development project aiming to validate a new self-report measure of relational aggression, the Young Adult Relational Aggression Scale (YARAS). Our hope is that the YARAS will ultimately prove to be a psychometrically sound means of assessing proactive and reactive relational aggression among emerging adults.

Many of the existing measures one finds in the adult relational aggression literature were adapted from measures developed with children and early adolescents. Others were developed for use in individual studies and have little evidence of reliability or validity. Still others are difficult to obtain because they were never published, have different versions without clear instructions for use, or do not distinguish between the proactive and reactive functions of relational aggression. Our hope is that the YARAS will be able to improve upon these and other limitations of existing instruments.

Caitlin is an advanced doctoral student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab who is in the process of applying for a predoctoral internship this year. With her successful dissertation proposal, she will soon be able to begin data collection.

Congratulations to Caitlin on completing this important milestone!

Daniel Deason Proposes Dissertation

Daniel Deason, an advanced doctoral student who will be applying for a predoctoral internship this year, successfully proposed his dissertation yesterday. He will soon be able to begin his data collection.

Despite evidence that relationally aggressive behaviors can cause problems for emerging adults, little is known about the nature of relational aggression among persons who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). Daniel's dissertation, Hypermasculine, antifeminine: The role of masculine identity in relational aggression among gay men, will examine relational aggression and victimization in the peer relationships of gay men using Exclusively Masculine Identity Theory (EMIT; Kilianski, 2003). Specifically, he aims to test a model derived from EMIT in which adherence to masculine ideology is examined as a potential moderator of the predicted relationship between an index of participants' sex stereotypically and their report of relational aggression and victimization.

Congratulations to Daniel on presenting a complex proposal so clearly!

Panel on Relational Aggression at MPA

Caitlin Clark, Daniel Deason, Niki Knight, and Ashley Morrison presented a panel discussion on relational aggression last week at the 66th Annual Convention of the Mississippi Psychological Association in Bay St. Louis. The panel, Relational aggression among young adults, defined relational aggression and provided examples of proactive and reactive functions of the behavior, reviewed several popular misconceptions about relational aggression and the relevant research literature, addressed the limitations of our knowledge about relational aggression among emerging adults, and examined treatment options for reducing relationally aggressive behaviors.

Congratulations to Caitlin, Daniel, Niki, and Ashley on a job well done!

Lab Welcomes Skylar Hicks

welcome
The Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab is pleased to welcome our newest doctoral student, Skylar Hicks. Skylar recently accepted an offer of admission to the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program at the University of Southern Mississippi and will be joining the lab in the Fall of 2015.

Skylar completed her bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of New Orleans, where she worked in Dr. Monica Marsee's Youth Social and Emotional Development Lab. She has been working as a research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the LSU Health Sciences Center. Her interest and experience in overt and relational aggression make her an excellent fit for the lab.

Congratulations to Skylar on her admission! We are looking forward to working with you in Hattiesburg.

Paper on Parenting and Relational Aggression Published

Our latest paper on relational aggression is now available in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma. The full citation is below. Congratulations to Caitlin!

Clark, C. M., Dahlen, E. R., & Nicholson, B. C. (2015). The role of parenting in relational aggression and prosocial behavior among emerging adults.
Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 24, 185-202. doi: 10.1080/10926771.2015.1002653

Developing a Measure of Relational Aggression

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The Spring semester is about to begin, and we have several projects approaching the end of the data collection phase. One of the first for which we hope to wrap up data collection and begin data analysis involves the development of a new self-report measure of relational aggression in college students.

Our new measure aims to assess general/peer relational aggression and romantic relation aggression on separate scales and to permit each type of relational aggression to be divided into proactive and reactive functions. For example, a relational aggressive behavior like spreading a malicious rumor about a friend behind his or her back could be proactive (i.e., unprovoked, planned, done for gain) or reactive (i.e., done out of anger or in response to provocation, unplanned, impulsive). We also included items designed to measure electronic forms of relational aggression, a dimension important to college students but not found in existing measures.

Instrument development is usually a length and complex endeavor. We started by conducting a literature review in order to make sure we had a clear definition of relational aggression. We then developed an initial item set on the basis of focus groups with college students and a review of existing measures appropriate to either adolescents or adults. The focus groups were especially useful because they revealed some important limitations of existing measures and provided us with ideas for relevant content that had not occurred to us. After several rounds of revising items, we submitted our item set to several experts on relational aggression. We revised the item set again based on the input of the expert reviewers. Now we are close to completing the step of administering the new items along with a few existing measures of relational aggression and related constructs to a large sample of college students. This will allow us to examine the factor structure of the item set, reduce the number of items while maximizing reliability, and examine the concurrent and discriminant validity of the resulting measure.

While we hope to complete this phase of the project this semester, many additional steps will remain. In fact, we are planning for the next few steps to be carried out as Caitlin Clark's dissertation. We will be at this project for awhile, but we hope to end up with a measure that has some useful advantages over the option currently available.

Careless Responding in Online Survey Research

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Much of our recent research on relational aggression has utilized college student samples and has involved online surveys. Based on published recommendations (e.g., Huang, Curran, Keeney, Poposki, & DeShon, 2011; Liu, Bowling, Huang, & Kent, 2013; Meade & Craig, 2012), we have been incorporating various methods of detecting careless responding in our surveys. What we have found is that a substantial number of research participants are responding carelessly. In the interest of data integrity, it is clear that the use of procedures to detect careless responders are essential to include in online survey research.

For those researchers just beginning to consider incorporating methods for identifying careless responders and reducing careless responding in online survey research, some of the procedures we have been using include:
  • Modifying consent forms and survey instructions to inform potential participants that quality assurance checks are being used and that failing such checks will result in them not receiving incentives for participation
  • Including validity items or bogus items that should be answered the same way by participants who are attending to item content
  • Measuring survey completion and/or individual instrument completion time
The use of these procedures has allowed us to make sure that participants who are responding carelessly do not receive incentives for participation (e.g., research credit) and that we can easily identify and remove their data.

We have noticed that it is becoming increasingly common for authors of studies using online surveys to address how they detected careless responders and what they did with these data. This suggests that the use of such procedures are rapidly becoming part of routine practice to promote data integrity.

Daniel Deason Defends Master's Thesis

Daniel Deason successfully defended his master's thesis today, Personality and Relational Aggression in College Students: The Role of Social Anxiety and Rejection Sensitivity. Daniel's study examined the utility of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, as well as social anxiety and rejection sensitivity in predicting relational aggression in college students' peer and romantic relationships.

In examining the zero-order correlations between the FFM constructs and relational aggression, both peer and romantic relational aggression were inversely related to agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability (i.e., the inverse of neuroticism). Thus, more relationally aggressive students scored lower on agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability.

When peer relational aggression and romantic relational aggression were each regressed on the five FFM constructs, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability emerged as significant predictors. Students reporting more relational aggression tended to be more extraverted, less agreeable, and have lower emotional stability.

Based on the literature, the strongest case could be made for the role of agreeableness and emotional stability. So, sequential regressions designed to take student gender and race into account were conducted. Agreeableness and emotional stability predicted peer relational aggression; emotional stability predicted romantic relational aggression.

Finally, the incremental validity of social anxiety and rejection sensitivity was tested over and above participant gender, race, and the full FFM. Social anxiety but not rejection sensitivity demonstrated evidence of incremental validity here. Interestingly, extraversion joined agreeableness and emotional stability as predictors of both peer and romantic relational aggression, suggesting that this variable may be more relevant than was previously thought.

Additional analyses will be needed to better evaluate the potential role of participant gender and race, so we will be sure to share them here once they are completed.

Dark Personalities and Relational Aggression

The "Dark Triad" of personality refers to narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, three constructs with links to overt aggression and other socially undesirable behaviors. Despite the utility of these variables in understanding a variety of behaviors, relatively little is known about their potential role in relational aggression. Moreover, there may be other "dark personality" constructs not adequately represented in the Dark Triad that could be helpful in understanding relationally aggressive behaviors (e.g., sadism).

We recently started collecting data for a couple of studies examining the possible role of the Dark Triad constructs in relational aggression and how they fit into broader models of personality, such as the Five Factor Model and the
HEXACO model of personality.

These studies fit our goal of learning more about relational aggression among emerging adults. In addition, it seems that the study of dark personality constructs may be beneficial in some of our other research areas (e.g., anger and traffic psychology).

Paper on Parenting and Relational Aggression Accepted for Publication

Caitlin Clark, a doctoral student working in the lab, received some good news this summer. A paper based on her master's project was accepted for publication in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma.

The paper, titled "The role of parenting in relational aggression and prosocial behavior among emerging adults," continues the lab's
research on relational aggression in college students. Results indicated that students' retrospective ratings of how they were parented were related to both relational aggression and prosocial behavior. Authoritative parenting, permissive parenting, and parental psychological control predicted relational aggression. Authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting predicted prosocial behavior, and participant race moderated the relationship between psychological control and prosocial behavior (i.e., parental psychological control was inversely related to prosocial behavior for Black students but not for White students).

Niki Knight Proposes Master's Thesis

Niki Knight, a doctoral student in her first year of the Counseling Psychology Program, successfully proposed her master's thesis today, The HEXACO Model of Personality and Dark Triad in Relational Aggression. She can begin data collection after obtaining IRB approval.

Niki's thesis will examine the relationships between the constructs represented by the HEXACO personality model and relational aggression in college students, focusing on the role of Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness. Additionally, she will assess the predictive utility of the Dark Triad constructs (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) in predicting proactive and reactive relational aggression.

Relational Aggression in College Students

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Relational aggression is a form of aggressive behavior in which the aggressor harms others by deliberately manipulating, damaging, or threatening to damage their relationships, feelings of acceptance or inclusion, and/or social status (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Werner & Crick, 1999). The destructive nature of relational aggression among children and early adolescents has been established for some time, but relatively little was known about relational aggression in older adolescents and emerging adults until recently.

Research conducted at the
Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab has focused on contributing to the growing literature on relational aggression in college students. Below is a summary of three recent studies conducted at the lab.

1.
Czar, Dahlen, Bullock, and Nicholson (2011) explored the potential role of psychopathic personality traits in relational aggression among college students. Both primary and secondary psychopathic traits predicted relational aggression, and these relationships did not vary by gender. This suggests that psychopathic traits (e.g., a lack of empathy or remorse, dishonesty, impulsivity, antisocial behavior), known to predict overt aggression, may also be relevant to understanding relational aggression.

2.
Prather, Dahlen, Nicholson, and Bullock-Yowell (2012) found that male and female college students reported engaging in similar levels of relational aggression in their dating relationships. Students with traditional (as opposed to egalitarian) sex role attitudes were more likely to engage in dating relational aggression, regardless of gender. In addition, the acceptance of couple violence predicted dating relational aggression over and above trait anger and sex role attitudes. Taken together, the results suggest that college students who experience more frequent and intense anger than their peers, hold traditional sex role attitudes, and are more accepting of intimate partner violence are more likely to commit acts of relational aggression in their dating relationships.

3.
Dahlen, Czar, Prather, and Dyess (2013) found that college students who described themselves as more relationally aggression reported higher levels of anxiety, depression, anger, loneliness, academic burnout, and the misuse of alcohol. The correlates of relational victimization were similar, suggesting that both relational aggression and victimization can be disruptive to college students' social and emotional functioning. Dahlen and colleagues (2013) also found that anxiety, trait anger, and personal problems related to alcohol use predicted relational aggression in peer relationships while taking students' gender, race, and experiences with relational victimization into account.

Daniel Deason Proposes Thesis on Personality and Relational Aggression

Daniel Deason, a doctoral student in his second year, successfully proposed his master's thesis today. He did a great job presenting his study and obtained approval from his committee to move forward.

Daniel's thesis, Personality and Relational Aggression in College Students: The Role of Social Anxiety and Rejection Sensitivity, will examine the utility of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, social anxiety, and rejection sensitivity in predicting relational aggression between peers and romantic partners. We expect that some of the Big Five personality factors will predict relational aggression but that social anxiety and rejection sensitivity will explain additional variance in relational aggression beyond the contribution of the FFM.

Presentation on Relational Aggression at Texas Psychological Association

Lab alumna, Michelle (Augustin) Christopher will be presenting work based on her dissertation at the Texas Psychological Association's 2012 Annual Convention in Austin, TX. She will have a poster titled "Correlates of Relational Aggression in College Students" in a poster session on November 1 and will then present a paper titled "Validation of the Young Adult Social Behavior Scale" as part of a symposium on November 3.

Congratulations to Michelle on having the poster and presentation accepted!

Kate Defends Dissertation on Regional Differences in Relational Aggression

Kate Czar successfully defended her dissertation yesterday. Her study, Regional Differences in Relational Aggression: The Role of Culture, compared college students from two regions of the U.S. (one northern and one southern) on relational aggression, gender role attitudes, and normative beliefs about aggression. Southern participants were more likely to report engaging in relationally aggressive behaviors and endorsed more traditional gender roles than did northern participants. Apart from the regional differences, gender role attitudes were associated with relational aggression in that participants holding more traditional gender role attitudes were more likely to report behaving in relationally aggressive ways. Independent of physical aggressiveness, gender role attitudes predicted relational aggression among women.

Congratulations to Kate on an excellent defense!

What is Relational Aggression?

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Relational aggression refers to a set of behaviors through which the aggressor harms others by adversely affecting their social relationships, reputation, and/or feelings of inclusion or belonging (Crick et al., 1999; Linder, Crick, & Collins, 2002). Common examples include spreading malicious rumors and gossip, social exclusion, and public embarrassment.

Psychologists have been studying relational aggression since the mid-1990s, and it has long been recognized as a problem by many parents of school-aged children. However, it took the 2004 film Mean Girls to bring relational aggression to the attention of the larger public. Since then, the costs of relational aggression among children and early adolescents have become increasingly clear. Victims are more likely to suffer from a variety of psychological problems, including anxiety and depression; both victims and aggressors are more likely to misuse substances and engage in a number of delinquent behaviors (Archer & Coyne, 2005; Sullivan, Farrell, & Kliewer, 2006).

Surprisingly little is known about relational aggression among older adolescents and adults, but this is slowly starting to change. Research is underway to investigate the nature of relationally aggressive behaviors among college students. One of the interesting findings to emerge so far is that the gender difference observed among children and younger adolescents (i.e., relational aggression is more common among girls) does not appear to be present.

Congratulations to Two New Lab Alumni

Michelle Augustin and Greg Futral both graduated with their doctorates in Counseling Psychology this month. They were valuable members of the lab, and their contributions will be missed even as we wish them the best moving ahead with their careers.

Michelle's dissertation, "A Psychometric Investigation of the Young Adult Social Behavior Scale (YASB)," was a confirmatory factor analysis and validation of a self-report measure of relational aggression suitable for college students. Greg's dissertation, "Increasing Readiness to Change Anger: A Motivational Group Intervention," involved a treatment study in which a brief motivational enhancement group was compared with a no-treatment control.