Natalie, a third semester undergraduate research assistant here at the FF-PTG Lab, recently presented a step-back presentation in which she provided her fellow lab members with updates regarding her current study. Her research focuses on influence, manipulation, and the dark triad and looks at how each of these factors relate to one another. More specifically, the online survey she published in the Winter 2023 semester assessed how narcissism, machiavellianism, covertness, humility, and social media use relate to both manipulativeness and influentialness.
Natalie recently closed the online survey and has completed the data collection phase of her study. She is now working on analyzing the data in order to help answer her main research question regarding the connection between influence and manipulation.
Natalie not only updated us on her current study, but she also provided us with the background information that helped to inspire her research. One theory that she explained during her presentation was the Manipulation as Careless Influence (MACI) Theory, which suggests that manipulation is careless influence and emphasizes the importance of understanding the role that intentions play in manipulative actions. Additionally, she mentioned the Covertness Thesis, which states that manipulation is a form of hidden influence, again noting that intentions are a key difference between manipulation and influence. With this background in mind, she presented her fellow lab members with four hypotheses and went into detail connecting the existing literature surrounding this topic to her current research study.
After presenting the lab with her hypotheses and questions, Natalie stepped back from her project and allowed her fellow lab members to take it on as their own. The lab took some time to discuss important topics regarding the study and tackled her questions surrounding how to incorporate certain variables into her analyses. During the step-back, the FF-PTG Lab also discussed what next steps might look like for Natalie when it comes to this project.
With the study’s data collection phase complete, Natalie is excited to dive into cleaning the data and completing the proper statistical analyses to test her hypotheses. We look forward to hearing more updates from Natalie!
FF-TIP LAB 