A while ago I met with Dr. Hoyt, and she passed along a bunch of important sources to look at in regards to my topic. She suggested a few different articles, and some of them even overlapped with articles suggested by Dr. Allison, a psychology professor that researches heroism. I am concerned about methodology of my study. I want to create an experiment that encapsulates what it is like to truly feel awed by nature or an incredible experience, but I don’t know if this can be captured in a laboratory setting. I also don’t know how easy it will be to get approval from the IRB for something like this. I think working on Amazon Turk would be a good strategy to getting a widespread, diverse population sample, but I am worried that this sort of scenario will not produce the genuine feelings of awe that I am after. I think I need to do more research into the types of awe that I want to elicit, and I also need to narrow down what variables to look at as my independent variables. I want to use variables that might be effective in a therapeutic setting that focus on personal wellbeing and health, but I don’t know how I will be able to measure such things especially if I am using Amazon Turk as my platform. The details of my research design are going to be what need the most work.
Jepson Honors Tutorial
LDST 399-01 Spring 2018
You might try talking to Dr. Harwell or Dr. Goethals as well. Although Dr. Harwell doesn’t use deception, one doesn’t need deception to attempt to invoke awe (a mountain vista or a story about heroism could do it without being deceptive). She might have an idea for using media in a study, especially if you’re interested in the link between awe and altruism. Dr. Goethals has also done work–as he said in class–on the impact of media, and might have some ideas for how to use video or image, as well. Dr. Allison may also have ideas. If you can find any studies done which attempt to invoke awe, that would give you some ideas of methodology.