To get a Ph.D. in Psychology you have to prove you have the ability to do scientific research, which is not surprising because that’s what they’re teaching you to do. Below you’ll find my master’s thesis and my dissertation. My job during and following my studies didn’t present much in the way of the opportunity to do Psych research, but I’ve always wanted to get back into it. Right now I’m putting together a study to look at integrating Zimbardo’s work on time perspective with Dweck’s work on mastery orientation to try and tease out individual differences in success using various time management techniques.

Forms of Discrimination in “Slasher” Horror Films: A Content Analysis

Every 5 to 10 years a paper comes out that analyzes slasher films. My contribution looked at 10 classics of the genre and used the character as opposed to the scene as the unit of analysis. I finished it a year before Scream came out, so I think I’ve got a solid copyright infringement case. Well, if I had gotten it actually published maybe. There’s that problem. My conclusion was that these films can be viewed more as morality plays than violent pornography and that Hollywood discriminates more in supporting characters than main ones. At least it used to.

Antecedents of Compliance Rates in Internet-derived Samples and Their Representativeness

At the beginning of the Internet age, back when I was amazed at the speed change going from a 14.4 modem to a 28.8, psychologists thought that collecting data online might be better than just using college freshmen. Yes, it’s kind of a homogeneous sample, but once you get them in the room, it’s harder for them to leave. The same can’t at all be said about people on the Internet. This paper is about how bad the drop-off, also referred to as subject mortality, can be.

Abstract

Internet-based, questionnaire type studies typically compare their results to
subject pool derived samples. The characteristics of Internet samples make
comparisons with mail-based sampling more appropriate. Compliance rates are
important for both, because of the self-selection biases that can arise when rates are
low. Compliance rates in this study decreased for individuals who had never
participated in this type of survey before, urban and suburban (as opposed to rural)
dwellers, and as a function of page number. Sex, connection speed (perceived and
actual), knowledge of survey length, and reward did not affect compliance rates.