Savannah Merold Defends Dissertation

Savannah Merold, an advanced doctoral student who recently completed her predoctoral internship at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, MO, successfully defended her dissertation this week. Savannah's dissertation, "The role of mate seeking motives, status acquisition motives, and dark personality in predicting responses to an aggression-provoking situation," synthesized research from evolutionary and personality psychology. She used vignettes designed to activate social motives thought to be relevant to aggression (e.g., mate seeking, status acquisition), assessed dark personality traits, and examined participants' responses to an aggression-provoking scenario.

Although Savannah found evidence that the vignettes activated the intended motives for women, this was not the case for men. The smaller number of men in the study and some methodological limitations resulted in insufficient statistical power to detect these effects in men. Overall, hypotheses about social motives and dark personalty traits interacting with gender to predict aggressive responses were not supported. Future research in this area is likely to benefit from using much larger and more diverse samples that will permit more extensive examination of gender main effects and interactions.

Congratulations to Savannah on accomplishing this important milestone!

Savannah Merold Proposes Dissertation

rocks in the water
Savannah Merold, an advanced doctoral student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab at the University of Southern Mississippi, successfully proposed her dissertation today. Savannah’s dissertation will examine the role of mate-seeking and status acquisition motives, along with dark personality traits (psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism), in the use of direct and indirect aggression.

Building on her thesis work, she plans to use vignettes to activate mate-seeking and status motives and examine how the dark personalty traits predict participants’ responses. Gender will also be included, as it is expected that women and men may respond differently.

Congratulations to Savannah on the successful proposal!

Niki Knight Defends Dissertation

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Niki Knight successfully defended her dissertation on Friday. Her study explored the relationship of two comparison-based traits (envy and contingent self-esteem) and two cognitive vulnerabilities (fear of negative evaluation and anger rumination) to indirect and displaced aggression. While there was reason to suspect that these variables would be related to aggression in general, little empirical evidence linked them directly to these particular forms of aggression.

Niki found that envy and anger rumination were positively related to indirect and displaced aggression. Fear of negative evaluation had a more limited role in that it was associated with some components of displaced and indirect aggression but not others. Surprisingly, contingent self-esteem did not appear to play a role in indirect or displaced aggression. Overall, her findings suggest that envy, fear of negative evaluation, and anger rumination likely have utility in understanding more subtle forms of aggression.

Congratulations to Niki on her successful defense!

Niki is currently completing her predoctoral internship at the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System and has accepted a psychology postdoctoral residency next year at the Kansas City VA Medical Center.

Niki Knight Proposes Dissertation

Niki Knight successfully proposed her dissertation this week. Niki's dissertation will examine the potential role of dispositional envy, fear of negative evaluation, contingent self-esteem, and anger rumination in multiple forms of indirect aggression.

Indirect aggression describes forms of aggressive behavior that can be described as non-confrontational, manipulative, or concealed. It is similar to relational aggression in many ways; however, relational aggression can be direct or indirect, and indirect aggression can be broader in the behaviors it involves. The constructs Niki has selected are theoretically relevant to indirect aggression, and it is reasonable to test them as predictors. There has been little research directly linking them to indirect aggression even though all have been shown to predict direct aggression.

Niki 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. Her previous work involved an examination of normal and dark personality traits in the context of relational aggression. With a successful dissertation proposal behind her, she will soon be able to begin data collection on her study.

Congratulations to Niki!