Browsing by Subject "College students--United States--Psychology"

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Cross-cultural constructions of self: American and Mexican college students
(2007) Ramírez Esparza, Nairán, 1973-; Pennebaker, James W.; Gosling, Sam
There are two general goals that personality researchers seek to accomplish. The first goal is to define domains that comprise the thousands of personal characteristics that make a person unique. And the second is to examine the generalizability of dimensions across cultures and languages, that is, to observe whether personality domains are universal or culture-specific. Following the steps of personality psychologists the first goal of this dissertation was to define dimensions of personality of Americans and Mexicans, and the second was to observe if dimensions were equivalent or unique across these two cultures. Typically personality researchers, in order to identify the most relevant aspects of human personality, have turned to a questionnaire method whereby people rate themselves along dimensions of traits most often described in natural language. These trait terms are derived from various dictionaries within the researchers' culture. Multiple ratings are then factor analyzed yielding a smaller group of broad traits that then serve to define the culture's primary personality dimensions. In this investigation, personality terms were culled from open-ended personality descriptions. Relying on a new text analytic procedure called the meaning extraction method, it was possible to define dimensions of personality in Americans and Mexicans. The factoranalytically derived results showed that there were seven relevant dimensions of personality for Americans and six dimensions for Mexicans. Using qualitative and quantitative analyses it was possible to observe which dimensions were equivalent and which dimensions were unique to each culture. Specifically, for both Americans and Mexicans, the most important dimensions were Sociability, Values, Hobbies/Activities, and Emotionality. Three dimensions were unique to Americans (i.e., Fun, Existentialism, and College Experience), and two for the Mexicans (Relationships and Simpatía). Other analyses were done to explore the universality and uniqueness of the dimensions. For example, dimensions were correlated with self-reports that measure dimensions wellestablished by personality researchers. The challenge of establishing dimensions across cultures and languages are discussed, along with the limitations of the approach.
Should I retaliate?: the role of aggression, forgivingness, moral responsibility, and social interest in the decision to return harm for harm
(2003) Locasio, Ann Lee; Manaster, Guy J.
This study examined the four constructs of forgivingness, aggression, moral responsibility, and social interest as they impact retaliation among college students. There has been renewed research interest into the concept of forgivingness in the last ten to fifteen years. While forgiveness refers to the propensity to refrain from resentment or seeking revenge against an offender, forgivingness is defined as the tendency to engage in acts of forgiveness across time and across situations. It is a trait or disposition. Research on aggression, moral responsibility, and social interest has been ongoing for several decades. Aggression refers to physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone. Moral responsibility means the tendency to act morally, in accordance with generally accepted standards of right and wrong, even when others may choose to do otherwise. Social interest is defined as having a sense of belonging to all of humanity, such that one’s connections with others are focused solely on the common good of all. This study looks at these three constructs along with level of forgivingness as they relate to retaliation. Retaliation in this study was defined as taking back not only what was taken from oneself, but going beyond that, taking more, in order to punish the other participant. Why people retaliate or refrain from doing so is not completely clear, but this study shows that forgivingness and social interest each play a part in predicting level of retaliation. These two constructs were predictors of the outcome variable; however, aggression, moral responsibility, and membership in a group where harm was done, intended, or neither, did not predict retaliation.