Ungson Lab Presents Research at EPA 2024

From February 29th to March 2nd, our lab took a trip to Philadelphia for the 2024 Eastern Psychological Association (EPA) Conference to present the results of our research over the past year among their undergraduate peers. During this trip, our researchers had the chance to immerse themselves in the vast array of research posters presented throughout the conference and attend lectures given by prominent speakers. Alongside the academic opportunities, they also got to explore other places of interest throughout the city over the weekend. Highlights included the Reading Terminal Market for the phenomenal variety of high-quality food, the Mütter Museum which provides a glimpse of medical history that is equally interesting and unsettling, and the Philadelphia Mall for its fun options for a group outing.

During the first day of the conference, one of our undergraduate seniors, Leroy Clark, presented his poster, titled “Factors Associated with Religious Affiliation Among College Students.” In his experimental study, expanding on previous work on need to belong and religiosity, he measured whether need to belong affected people’s preferences between churches that emphasize God and those that emphasize the congregation and the connections within it. Although there was no significant relationship between the two, centrality of religion did significantly affect preference for God or congregation, suggesting that those with low centrality of religion began to show a preference for God.

On the second day, our other research assistants in attendance, junior Emily Erdman and senior Jeffrey Lind, presented “Punching Up and the Rules of Using Aggressive Humor,” exploring intragroup dynamics of power and how it relates to permissiveness toward non-normative behavior. The experiment itself measures perceived warmth and competence from subjects toward a fictional person using aggressive humor toward someone else while manipulating whether the user was of high or low social status within a group, and whether the target on the receiving end was of high or low. They found a marginal interaction for perceived warmth, such that high status people were rated as warmer than a low status person when the target is of low status. All in all, the trip to Philadelphia for EPA was a fantastic experience for our lab and our seniors were thrilled to be able to attend the conference before they graduate.

By: Jeff Lind | April 15, 2024