Projects in Social Psychology Supervised by Elaine Harrigan
Professor Harrigan will supervise research projects related to the social self. Two-semester projects will involve conducting an empirical study and writing a research paper; one-semester projects will involve writing a thorough literature review and research proposal. Students may consider conducting research related to one of Professor Harrigan’s current research areas, which include:
Nontraditional Social Need Fulfillment: Parasocial Relationships
Social activities are typically classified as those involving face-to-face interactions with friends, family members, and romantic partners. However, a growing body of work suggests that we can fulfill social needs with a variety of activities, including those that do not seem inherently social. We refer to these as “non-traditional social strategies,” “social surrogates,” or “symbolic social bonds.” One type of non-traditional social strategy is a parasocial relationship, which is a one-sided psychological bond with a celebrity or media figure. Recently, I have examined the ways these relationships are strengthened with various types of media exposure, as well as the long-term impacts of these relationships. In future work, I plan to continue to investigate the consequences of these relationships on people’s attitudes and behaviors, as well as how personality variables may impact the formation and maintenance of these relationships.
Nontraditional Social Need Fulfillment: Musical Social Surrogates
Although social surrogacy has been studied in many domains, this theory has yet to be experimentally extended to the domain of music. I have recently begun to look into how music may function as a non-traditional social strategy and help individuals fill their belongingness needs. Music can function as a social surrogate in three ways: music can strengthen our parasocial relationship with musical artists, remind us of others, and immerse us into the world of the lyrics and meaning of the song. I am interested in diving deeper into all three of these ways that music can be utilized as a social surrogate. Students may wish to focus on one of these specifically, or may want to explore the context of music more broadly.
Social Media and Social Need Fulfillment
Social networking sites are a pervasive part of modern life. My work in this area has focused on how the need to belong, as well as personality variables such as attachment style and goal orientation, influence the way we choose to engage in these contexts. I plan to continue to study how personality variables may moderate how individuals differently utilize social media. I also plan to investigate further how personality variables may moderate how individuals are differently impacted by their social media use.
Aspects of the Social Self
The self exists in a variety of social contexts, from traditional (such as spending time with friends, both online as well as in person) to the non-traditional (such as listening to music). A whole host of personality variables impact not only how we perceive the world, but also how we interact within it. I am especially interested in studying attachment style, self-esteem, gender, self-construal, and Big 5 personality traits. However, I am open to students who have special interests in other individual difference variables and would like to study the impacts of those variables in a social context.