Meet the Researchers:
Building on earlier research
Interview with Professor Joseph de Rivera
Psychologist and peace studies professor Joe de Rivera mentors a group of students interested in understanding what motivates people to take action on a social or political cause that's important to them. In a recent conversation, Chad Cote '04, Tara O'Connor '04, Mitch Guerette '05, and psychology graduate student Caitlin Mahoney discussed their research.
Professor de Rivera, could you begin by describing the purpose of this group?
We want to understand what motivates people to participate actively in the political process. We're interested in encouraging political citizenship. It's not enough just for people to know how to vote. We want them to tell their congressional representatives how they feel about different pieces of legislation.
This group is following up on some earlier research that I conducted with a graduate student, Lisa Maisels, and an undergraduate who went on to get her doctorate, Elena Gerstmann. (See Overview or In Depth) In that research we investigated the emotions that influence political action. Our research suggested that feelings of anger played an important role in motivating someone to write a letter to his or her congressperson. Chad, Mitch, Tara, and Caitlin have designed three new approaches to expand our understanding of these earlier results.
Caitlin, what is your project?
I'm studying whether people's emotional states, specifically, feelings of security or insecurity, affect the political positions that they hold. After inducing one of these two states, we ask each participant in the experiment to evaluate two different proposals for national defense, one for missile defense, and one for the creation of a Department of Peace. I've recorded the responses of about 35 volunteers and am now analyzing the data.
How do you manipulate the subjects' emotional states?
Half of the participants, while listening to soothing music, read a couple of short news articles on national security conditions. These articles frame the issue from the perspective of an optimistic, cooperative approach. The other half of participants listen to more anxious-sounding music while reading actual news articles about terrorist activities. Then each participant evaluates the two proposals.
Mitch and Chad, could you explain your project?
Chad: We're looking at whether Prochaska's theory of behavioral change might be used to motivate people to take political action. Prochaska suggested that people go through five stages when they change their behavior: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. This model is currently used to assist people in overcoming addictive behaviors like smoking or alcohol abuse.
Mitch: A person needs to progress through Prochaska's stages gradually in order to make a positive change. We thought that perhaps people would be more likely to take political action (in this case writing a letter), if they passed through each stage of behavioral change.
How are you designing an experiment to test your idea?
Chad: We're creating a series of web pages designed to transition each participant through the five stages. Each web page focuses on a particular stage and is constructed to move that person through that stage. For example, the pre-contemplative stage is involved with information gathering. The corresponding web page focuses on facts about the issue-in this case nuclear weapons. The page also features videos designed to appeal to the participants' emotions. For example, one video is a two-minute clip from a documentary called Lost Generation, about the bombing of Hiroshima.
Once we've finished the web site, we'll recruit volunteers who already oppose the further development of nuclear weapons. After they review the web pages, we evaluate if they're likely to write a letter to their representatives expressing their views.
Tara, what is your research focus?
I want to know if feelings of compassion play a role in motivating people to take on political responsibilities. After researching the relevant literature, I realized that a good test to measure a person's ability to experience compassion didn't exist. So I decided to develop one. I recruited volunteers from the Introduction to Peace Studies course and asked each to complete two questionnaires. One presented ten different situations, and for each situation participants were asked to rate, on a scale of 0-4, how likely that situation would make them feel each of the ten different emotions.
The second questionnaire was the compassion scale. It included 14 items that describe compassionate people. Participants rated on a 1-7 scale how much they agreed or disagreed with each statement. Lower scores indicate a more compassionate ideology.
Then I ran a correlation test between responses on the two questionnaires. I'm trying to see what sorts of situations evoke compassion, but also to validate the compassion scale that I developed. Eventually I'll take the next step and try to determine how feelings of compassion relate to taking action.
Twenty-two volunteers participated in my experiment and results from the two questionnaires did correlate positively. The more a person indicated he or she would feel compassion in a given situation, the more likely he or she was to rate high on the compassion scale.
DeRivera: If these three projects offer promising results, we can combine the findings. For example, we might ask if people who score highly on Tara's compassion scale are more likely to have progressed to the contemplative stage regarding the issue of nuclear weapons.
Since this is not a formal course, how did each of you get involved in this project?
De Rivera: Caitlin came to Clark as a graduate student because she was interested in the psychology of peace, so it was natural for her to get involved. Both Chad and Tara have taken Introduction to Peace Studies and are interested in peace psychology. Mitch became involved because he's interested in political psychology. Chad, Tara and Mitch are all getting credit for their work through the Directed Research course option.
Is this the first time those of you who are undergrads have participated in research?
Mitch: It is for me, but right now I'm actually doing two directed research projects. The other is with Professor Wiser and has to do with literacy development and the development of symbolic understanding in young children. We're trying to figure out if exposing kids to and making them more familiar with symbols will facilitate earlier literacy development.
Chad: This is my second research project. In my earlier psychology capstone course, I did an experiment on counter-attitudinal speeches with an enthusiasm variable. We wanted to know if a speaker who presents with heightened enthusiasm can influence his or her own attitude more than if the speech is just delivered normally. But this project with Joe is different. Before, we were basically just copying and manipulating an experimental design that had been provided to us, whereas this time we're really developing something new.
What about you Tara?
I've done quite a bit of research as an undergraduate. In addition to this project, I'm completing a senior honors thesis on how children's ages when their parents divorce affects the children's attitudes toward relationships when they grow up. Aside from that, I've participated in research both as a volunteer and for course credit with Professor Cordova in his Couples Lab.
Can you comment on the advantages and disadvantages of participating in research, especially as it compares with more traditional classroom learning?
Tara: It's not like writing a paper on somebody else's research. It's your own research so it's more important to you. It's more valuable in that sense. And also, I want to go to graduate school and I know that research experience is important.
Chad: I like research a lot. You're still engaged with other people's work, because you're reading their reports as you try to figure out how your own research will develop. Mitch and I read a lot of Prochaska and Joe gave us a lot of other relevant information to read. But it's a different way of engaging yourself in someone else's work, because when you're reading you're thinking how you could adapt it to your own purpose. Our study really evolved out of several others that we read. So I think you read other people's research in a completely different way when you realize you're going to be adapting it to your own use.
Mitch: So little has been done on our topic. When you think about all the psychology journals and how much has been published, you assume that everything's been done before. But I'm realizing that there's so much in the political domain of psychology that hasn't been explored. It gives you so many ideas for what you could do in the future.