RESEARCH PROJECTS

• Gleason, M. (data analysis in progress). Investigating the relationship between self-esteem and the impact of value affirmations.

• Citera, M., and Gleason, M. (manuscripts in progress). Sources of Self-Efficacy: Reliability & Validity.

• Geher, G., Rolon, V., Holler, R., Betancourt, K., Chason, M., Gleason, M., Mabie, B., McCarthy, M., Rawlins, B., Thomson, G., You’re Dead to Me! Fitness and Affect-Related Consequences of Social Estrangements (in preparation)

• Gleason, M.  Data Mining: The Future of Psychological Research . . . or a Runaway Train? [Book review of Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking), by Christian Rudder] Published by The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium 03/15/2015.

• Gleason, M., Geher, G. Musical Aptitude and Emotional Intelligence. Investigating the relationship between musical production and perception and emotional abilities 12/15/2014.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

• Gleason, M. (April, 2015). Does Musical Skill Signal Emotional Ability? Academic presentation given at the North Eastern Evolutionary Psychology Society Conference 2015, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

• Gleason, M. & Geher, G. (April, 2014). Is Musical Skill Related to Emotional Ability? The Effect of Ability and Training on Emotional Intelligence. Poster presented at the North Eastern Evolutionary Psychology Society Conference 2014, New Paltz, New York, USA.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Self-esteem and Value Affirmations

• Sources of Self-efficacy

• Industrial/Organizational Psychology

• Motivation –Social Cognitive Theory

• Social Psychology

Self-Esteem and Value-Affirmations

I am currently analyzing data for my own study examining whether trait self-esteem moderates the effectiveness of value-affirmations related to belongingness. The value affirmation literature suggests reflecting on core personal values can have lasting positive effects.  Affirmations exercises typically involve reflecting on personal relationships/belongingness.  Interestingly, Sociometer Theory posits that perceived social acceptance or rejection informs self-esteem.  By integrating these two theoretical perspectives, I devised a study to examine whether relationship-based affirmations are effective for everyone or just individuals with high self-esteem. I am currently analyzing data collected over the past three semesters.

Sources of Self-Efficacy

I am working with a colleague examining how different sources of self-efficacy contribute to performance and self-efficacy beliefs. Our paper examines the reliability and validity of a newly constructed self-efficacy measure. This new scale aims to improve upon the sources of academic self-efficacy scale (SASES) developed by Hampton (1988) in a number of ways.  Using data collected from two separate studies we are assessing its psychometrics.  These prior studies utilized multiple self-efficacy scales, which allowed us to perform a factor analysis. It was hypothesized that SASEs would have a factor structure that would match the theoretical factor structure proposed by the original scale and be inter-correlated with other measures of self-efficacy. In essence, we are assessing the reliability and internal consistency of the scale.  In addition, we are looking at the predictive and convergent validity of the new scale compared with standard measures.

My interest in this domain involves how performance accomplishments, in particular, contribute to projected task success and actual competence. Prior research has investigated college student's sources of self-efficacy and the magnitude of their mathematics self-efficacy. For females, perceived performance accomplishments (past performance) predicted math self-efficacy. Actual performance, however, did not. Thus, beliefs about past performance can be a stronger predictor of future task success than objective past performance.  I am striving to fully understand the link between self-beliefs, feedback, and performance.