Research Symposium

BIO

Shabely, a senior from Miami, FL, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Sociology. She intends to use the experience and skills she has gathered as part of the Motivated Social Cognition Lab to pursue a career in psychological research. Her research interests include emotional contagion, person perception, bias formation and stereotyping, and aims to bridge the gap between social psychology and neuroscience.

Exploring Gender Differences in Engagement with Self-Transcendent and Self-Enhancement Value Affirmation Interventions

Abstract

Previous research that examines value affirmation, looks at two clear distinct values SE and ST. Self-enhancement (SE) values prioritize personal gains, such as achievement, power, and status. Self-transcendence (ST) values prioritize the welfare of others, emphasizing their well-being over personal gain. This study aimed to explore this perspective by examining the relation of gender as a predictor of SE /ST themes and personal engagement in a series of short responses collected from a value affirmation task. We predict that SE themes are more strongly held by male participants compared to female participants. Additionally, we predict that ST themes are more strongly held by female participants compared to male participants. In an online Qualtrics pilot survey, participants were randomly put into three conditions (control condition, ST condition, SE condition) to ensure variance. The validation code addressed the presence of ST or SE themes as well as how participants discussed the SE or ST value. We measured participant engagement by examining how they personalized their written responses—coding both participants' personal experiences and elaborations of key points. In this study, we aim to reveal gender differences in value affirmation, which may impact the effectiveness of other interventions pertaining to values.

Keywords: Gender, values, engagement