Originally published: . Volume 13, No. 4. Source pages: 11.
The Southeastern Psychological
Association held its Annual Meeting last month in South Carolina. Among those presenting were students of Dr. Erin Dupuis, faculty sponsor from Loyola University, and students from Louisiana State University, with faculty member Dr. Mary Lou Kelley.
Taylor Standberry and Dr. Dupuis presented their research, "The Association Between Online Gaming Relationships, Social Support, and the COVID-19 Pandemic." The aim was to examine the possible association between the COVID-19 pandemic, social support, and online gaming relationships.
The authors note, "Previous research has shown that high levels of social support can act as a buffer against stress and can increase well-being. Individuals get social support in various ways, including playing video games. Our study had a primary focus on Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs). MMORPGs are a genre of online video games where players join a world inhabited by other players’ characters and they often cooperate with other players to complete in-game tasks."
Participants completed the MMORPG Game Involvement Scale (Dupuis & Ramsay, 2011), and the Interpersonal Support Evaluation Scale to measure perceived emotional support from friends, with subscale for tangible support, belonging support, self-esteem support, and appraisal support.
"Playing online games during the pandemic was associated with increased levels of belonging, self-esteem, and social involvement in MMORPGs. The implications of these findings are that playing these games may be helpful during world-wide emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, in maintaining social support and online gaming relationships when individuals cannot give and receive this support through direct, in-person methods."
Ms. Standberry said, "This is my first time attending a big conference such as SEPA, so I am really excited to see other undergraduates' work as well as share the data Dr. Dupuis and I collected!"
Adrian Ridley and Dr. Dupuis presented their design for an ongoing project, "The Relation Between Differing Kinds of Fear and Compassion."
The authors note that fear is a survival response and is inherently self-interest based. Because of this it is associated with reduced empathy and compassion for others. Their research attempts to explain this relationship further by separating fear into specific subcategories of fright and dread.
From Louisiana State University, Kelsey Coulthard, Kristen Hollas, and faculty member Dr. Mary Lou Kelley, presented, "Coping Behavior Across Adults and Genders."
Coping, is categorized by problem-based and emotion-based, and across positive (approach & adaptive) and negative (avoidant & maladaptive) strategies. "Positive coping skills include meditation and receiving social support which are associated with positive outcomes. Negative coping methods such as behavioral disengagement and substance use which are associated with more negative outcomes.
"Numerous studies have examined coping styles in specific groups or clinical samples such as adolescents, college students, and minorities but few have examined general adult populations. […] The present study examines coping styles across a diverse, adult sample."
The researchers found that age is a significant predictor for several coping responses. Younger adults were more likely to use negative coping styles, maladaptive and avoidant coping strategies. Older adults were more likely to use approach-based positive coping. Adaptive coping skills tended to be used more by older adults but this this was not statistically significant. Gender identity was significantly associated with different coping styles.
"These results suggest differences between both age groups and sexes regarding the types of coping skills used. The implications from this data help us understand how adults respond to stressful situations. Specifically, younger adults were more likely to use negative coping strategies compared to older adults, who were likely to use positive coping skills. Further, female participants were more likely to use more coping skills, both positive and negative, compared to men."
Kristen Hollas, Kelsey Coulthard, and Dr. Kelley also presented, "Posttraumatic Stress and Familial Support on College Students’ Academic Achievement."
Authors note that research indicates that students with higher levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) have lower grades and that greater social support may facilitate recovery and lessen PTSS. For this study, initial analyses indicated that familial support was significantly correlated with GPA. "After controlling for the effects of race and socioeconomic status, hierarchical regressions revealed that family support did not moderate the relationship between PTSS and GPA, due to the interaction term between PTSS and family support being insignificant. However, individual regression analyses found significant relationships between PTSS and GPA, PTSS and family support, as well as GPA and family support. Additionally, being impoverished was significantly associated with having a lower GPA."
From the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Taylar Johnson and Dr. Manyu Li, presented "Fandom Communities’ Engagement in Black Lives Matters Digital Activism: A Study of Intragroup Processes." (See the March issue of the Times.)
Also at the Southeastern Psychological Association were members of the LSU Health Sciences Center who presented a workshop, " Making a Difference: Breaking the Intergenerational Cycle of Foster Care Through Baby Court Team."
Presenting were Amy Dickson, PsyD, Sebastian Del Corral Winder, PsyD, and Amy Rinner, PsyD, all from LSU Health Sciences Center.
Kelsey Coulthard (L) and Kristen Hollas, students of Dr. Mary Lou Kelley at Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, presented at the Southeastern Psychological Association last month in South Carolina. (courtesy photo)
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