Psychology students present research at conferences

     Dr. Trey Asbury, assistant professor of Psychology at Campbell University, lent a helping hand to his students’ research projects. He recently directed and co-authored a study titled “Comparing Stress and Social Support between Biological and Adoptive Families” with two Fort Bragg students Melissa Johnson and Elaine Franklin.
     The study was designed to determine if there is a higher stress level when raising biological or adopted children. According to the research conducted, very few to no differences were found. One hundred participants were surveyed in the study nation-wide.
     The project was presented on March 17, in Atlanta at the Southeastern Psychological Association regional conference.
     “It took approximately nine months to collect the data,” Asbury said. “We found different parenting organizations on the Web and called for participants. We then sent out packets of questionnaires regarding the standardized assessment of stress and social support.”
     In other research, four students on Campbell’s main campus will be presenting a paper from their Fall 2005 research methods class at the Conference of the Carolinas on April 22 at Meredith College co-sponsored by NC State University.
     Catherine Allen, Katy Peverall, Tyler Price and Jon Buchanan conducted a study on perceptions and potential differences between rap versus country music.
     The project took lyrics from an early folk song with aggressive and sexually explicit lyrics that one would expect to find in today’s music and presented them to 93 Campbell students divided into rap and a country groups. The students predicted that a negative bias would form towards rap and rap artists.
     The findings did not show a difference between perceptions of negative bias to one genre of music, but it did show participants were against congressional control and censorship from the government in terms of music. The project did measure that the participants favored parental censorship.