91短视频

In part stemming from her travels to Asia, 91短视频 senior Lara Weaver has always been fascinated by the ways religion motivates and influences people. So when Professor Gregory Koop encouraged students in his two-semester applied psychology research class to investigate topics they felt personally drawn to, she took the bait 鈥� and won.

Weaver鈥檚 poster about her research received the student poster award at the Virginia Association for Psychological Science annual convention in Roanoke in April.

Titled 鈥淭he role of religious motivation and empathy in predicting theological ideation,鈥� it explored how religious ideation is correlated with empathy and religious motivation, and gave her results that she said were 鈥減retty cool to see.鈥�

Winning 鈥渇elt good, for sure,鈥� Weaver said 鈥� and added that her classmates鈥� work was also outstanding, in part thanks to the 鈥渃ountless hours鈥� of review and input from Koop.

鈥淗e made sure we spent a lot of time proofreading and critiquing them,鈥� she said. 鈥淎ll of our research stood out. We had put a lot of time into them because we each had a personal tie to our research.鈥�

Her senior classmates and their projects were:

• Michael Austin: 鈥淒irected forgetting: Examining accounts through negative priming鈥�
• Liza Brenneman and Liz Resto: 鈥淭est anxiety: Expressive writing as a priming intervention鈥�
• Hannah Cash: 鈥淓ffects of art making among college students鈥�
• Cela Hoefle: 鈥淰isibility and attitudes towards transgenderism within Thai and U.S. undergraduates鈥�
• Jasmine Johnson: 鈥淗ow pre-performance routines enhance performance in individuals participating in sports activities鈥�
• Maisie Kirkley: 鈥淭he effects of reporting study hours on academic performance鈥�
• Michaela Mast: 鈥淭he brain on music: An inquiry of shared music-color associations鈥�
• Lydia Musselman: 鈥淒o we remember emotional material better?鈥�
• Rose Persinger: 鈥淪elf-objectifying environments affect one鈥檚 mood and self-esteem鈥�
• Emma Stutzman: 鈥淐an anger make you happy? Examining desired emotions and well-being鈥�

Research strength

Original research projects introduce every student to 鈥渢he ins and outs of scientific inquiry,鈥� said department chair Kim Brenneman 鈥� and an added strength of the psychology program at 91短视频 is that all students have the opportunity to conduct individual research on a topic related to their unique interests.

The senior research course cultivates a broad background in the field of psychology for students, who by their senior year have fulfilled prerequisites of general, developmental, social and cognitive psychology, as well as a course on interpersonal relationships among others, Koop said. They all have been introduced formally to the research process in the cognitive psychology class, where each student formulates a research proposal.

For Weaver, that proposal took her into the minds of Mennonite church-goers in Harrisonburg.

Weaver鈥檚 research

Previous research, as described by Weaver on her poster, suggested that people whose religious motivations are intrinsic are more likely to act on their morals than are people whose religious motivations are extrinsic, say from social or family influences. Similarly, empathy is associated with greater tendency to act in socially supportive ways.

But would religious ideation be connected with empathy and religious motivation? Weaver hypothesized that intrinsic religious motivation would correlate with greater empathy and predict 鈥渁 more progressive theology,鈥� while extrinsic religious motivation would correlate with less empathy.

To assess the variables in her subjects, Weaver sent three-part surveys to 30 randomly selected members of each of four Mennonite churches in Harrisonburg, two she identified as conservative and two she identified as progressive.

However, she said, only three people from the conservative churches responded (37 responded from the two progressive churches). Therefore, she reported on her poster, 鈥渢he lack of variation in theological variation made it impossible to indicate whether intrinsic or extrinsic religious motivation along with empathy relate to theological ideation.鈥�

Her results did suggest, however, that 鈥渢hose who are more intrinsically motivated are correlated with higher levels of empathy.鈥�