NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Social Science

Feeling at Home: Exploring Third Places and University Student Belonging

Alejandra Galvan

Elmhurst University

Students are often torn between their academic obligations and time taken to relax and socialize. In university settings, third places are defined as places that foster socialization and allow students to be a part of a community (Mclane & Kozinets, 2019), as opposed to first (home) or second (work/academic) places (Oldenburg, 1999). Our research aims to understand which third places university students value, as well as the relationship between student demographic characteristics and belongingness. There were 120 Elmhurst University undergraduate students who completed an online Qualtrics survey about their use of third places on campus and multiple measures related to belongingness and sense of community. Analyses demonstrate that the most popular third places were the university library, as well as two student union spaces, all of which scored high in third place characteristics and accessibility. Additionally, LGBTQ+ students and commuter students scored significantly lower on belongingness measures than their non-LGBTQ+ and residential counterparts. The findings enhance our understanding of which populations need to be prioritized when creating a welcoming campus, as well as how third places can be enhanced to continue building community.

The Psychological Effects of a Perceived Loss to an AI versus a Human Opponent

Kaelyn Taylor

Angelo State University

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into competitive and evaluative domains, it is important to understand how individuals psychologically respond to AI opponents. This study examined the psychological effects of losing to an AI versus a human opponent in an emotion-recognition task. Participants were N = 77 undergraduate students from Angelo State University who were randomly assigned to compete against either an AI or a human opponent in an emotion-recognition task. Regardless of actual performance, all participants received standardized false feedback indicating they had lost to their opponent in a task involving identifying emotions in dance videos. Following the task, participants completed self-report measures of self-esteem, stress, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward AI. Independent-samples t-tests revealed no statistically significant differences between conditions; however, effect sizes were small to moderate for self-efficacy (d = .36) and attitudes toward AI (d = .33), with participants in the AI condition reporting greater self-efficacy and more positive attitudes toward AI following a loss to their AI opponent. These findings were contrary to the hypothesis that losing to an AI would produce negative psychological outcomes. Instead, the results suggest that participants may perceive AI opponents as less personally threatening and maintain a more favorable view of themselves and the AI system after a loss to AI. Future research should explore the effects of higher-stakes or more personally relevant tasks, as well as the long-term implications of human-AI competition for psychological well-being.

The Extent to which the Internet can Teach Knitting Mastery

Maggie Johnson

University of West Florida

Since its invention over a thousand years ago, the craft of knitting has been traditionally passed down through face-to-face instruction. Knitting techniques within communities were standardized, which led to the development of cultural knitting styles and techniques. However, with increased globalization and the rise of the Internet, face-to-face instruction is no longer the only way to learn the craft, and the geographical boundaries of cultural knitting techniques have become blurry. Prospective students can become virtual apprentices, learning techniques through multiple masters. Learning how to knit has become a more personalized and independent learning experience. With this new method of learning, the following question arises: to what extent can the Internet teach knitting mastery?

Highlights from previous editions

Educating the Outsiders: The Importance of Social Support in the Success of Latino Undocumented Students

Emily Adkins

Eastern Kentucky University

It takes a village to raise a child. This traditional proverb points to the importance of community and cooperation in ensuring children’s needs are met and exposing them to a wide variety of resources that could provide assistance if necessary. This concept of community support is widely heralded, and for many students in the United States, this saying is vital. Their villages are complete with parents, teachers, and administrators that support them and believe in their potential for success. But who forms the support system for children who are on America’s social fringes? For students who seem to be outsiders, such as those who lack a nine digit Social Security number due to lack of authorization to live in the United States, support systems play an especially vital role in academic success. These students face situations filled with fear and stress every day, including fear stemming from potential deportation of themselves or family members, stress due to poverty or being overworked, and heightened sense of being on the fringes of mainstream society. In the context of such circumstances, undocumented students are more equipped to overcome these obstacles when they are placed in the context of effective social support systems such as having high parental involvement in education and gaining mentorships and professional relationships with adults in their communities.

Bridging Aesthetic Theory: Comparing Scottish Enlightenment Theories to Modern Neuroscience Evidence

Calen Smith

Westminster College

Artistic disciplines burgeoned in Scotland during the eighteenth century. As fields such as sculpture, painting, literature, and music thrived, so did philosophy. Responding to the advancements of the fine arts, philosophers such as Hume, Reid, and Hutcheson began to write about the philosophy of art—aesthetics. Though they addressed a variety of themes in their writings, aesthetic theory can generally be characterized by three main questions: does beauty originate internally (person) or externally (object), are there universal traits that create beauty, and lastly, what is the role of the critique (expert) in recognizing and interpreting beauty? Three hundred years later, academic fields have progressed to apply empirical methods (keeping with the hopes of Scottish empiricists) to the questions of enlightenment philosophers. The rising field of neuroaesthetics applies the methodologies of neuroscience and psychology to the philosophical questions raised by Scottish thinkers and their contemporaries.

Health is Wealth: Behavioral Economic "Nudges" Applied to Health Care

Cameron Watts

Georgia College & State University

“Health is wealth,” is a common catchphrase adopted by non-profits and clinics to describe the inherent value of investing in one’s physical and mental wellbeing. However, most people do not recognize the truth behind the phrase – the financial return on health investments. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in 2010, that over 2.3 trillion dollars were spent to treat chronic and mental health diseases, many of which were preventable (Gerteis et al., 2016); Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office expects 966 billion dollars to be spent on Medicare and Medicaid alone in 2018 (Projections for Major Health Care Programs for FY 2018 2018). That is money straight from the taxpayer’s pocket and health care costs continue to rise.

Non-Suicidal Self-Injury on YouTube: A Content and Comment Analysis

Nathan Lowry, Carol Ewert

Iona College

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a prevalent public health issue that affects millions of teenagers and young adults each year. With the ever-increasing use of social media among youth, it is important to understand how NSSI is represented online. The goal of the current study was to update the research of Lewis and colleagues (2010) to examine how NSSI is represented on YouTube via a content analysis. We also examined whether certain types of NSSI related videos may encourage or trigger viewers to engage in NSSI themselves by coding comments posted in response to videos. For this study, we searched “self-harm” and used the view count filter to select the top 25 most viewed videos within the past three years. We coded the content using categories from a previous study conducted by Dr. Colleen Jacobson’s research team (Tigershtrohm et al., 2016). Our results showed that 28% of all videos fell under the “bashing” category, 20% fell under the “providing support category” and 20% fell under the “current acts” category. Our results also showed that 36.8% of all comments were self-disclosure, 36.4% were feedback towards the poster and only 1% of all comments indicated the viewer was triggered. Our results lead us to the conclusion that, though the majority of videos fell under the category “bashing,” the majority of comments discouraged NSSI and did not trigger viewers.