Natalie Safo, a third semester undergraduate research assistant, presented her Honors College Thesis Defense to the FF-PTG Lab this past week. All of her hard work designing this project, collecting data, and running statistical analyses to interpret her results culminated in this presentation. Natalie shared the hypotheses, methodology, results, and future directions of her Honors College Project which looks at the differences between manipulativeness and influentialness and how they relate to factors such as machiavellianism, covertness, narcissism, and hostility.
Natalie found support for the four hypotheses she posited at the beginning of her presentation. Her results showed that high levels of manipulativeness and high influentialness were associated with both higher machiavellianism and higher levels of narcissism. She also found that high levels of manipulativeness and low levels of influentialness were associated with both higher covertness and higher hostility. These results have a myriad of implications and provide a deeper understanding of manipulation and influence in the age of social media, which Natalie discussed thoroughly in her thesis defense.
In her presentation, Natalie allowed us not only to gain insight into the topic of manipulation and influence, but also provided us with a better understanding of what can be researched next. She proposed that future research into this topic might include looking at tipping points of when people succumb to manipulation or influence. Additionally, one might consider looking into the differences between those who are easily manipulated or influenced and those who are not.
Natalie’s presentation was insightful and intriguing and we are excited to see what her next steps are! Although we will certainly miss working as closely with Natalie as she wraps up this chapter of her academic career and graduates at the end of this semester, we are proud of what she has accomplished and know that she has a bright future ahead!
FF-TIP LAB 