Projects

Project Description

Free will belief is the belief that individuals are free agents who are capable of making their own decisions and choosing their own behavior. Previous research established that psychologists can effectively manipulate belief in free will in psychological studies by requesting participants read pro/anti-free will statements as well as read a piece of writing with pro/anti-free will messaging. Some previous studies have framed the piece of writing as a vignette research article to participants. A recent study in our lab revealed that free will belief can also be effectively manipulated by framing the same materials to participants as podcast recording clips of which their feedback is being requested. This method has many benefits and has provoked follow-up work including this project which seeks to utilize this method for manipulating other beliefs and mindsets, including growth mindset (the belief that intelligence can be improved and expanded with effort).

Technology or Computational Component

Involvement in this project will facilitate exposure to various stages of the research process. This includes survey design, literature review, data analysis, and more using tools such as Qualtrics, a reference management system called Zotero, SPSS, and more. A student may be asked to find literature using online databases or use a reference manager to contribute to lab literature reviewing. The student may be responsible for further survey design, data collection on an online survey platform, in person data collection, and using the survey building platform Qualtrics. Students may also be involved with data cleaning and analysis using Excel and SPSS. Additional skills that the student may have the opportunity to gain experience in include participant interaction during in-person data collection and presenting research findings.