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.

Tags: electronic aggression, dark personalities