National Research Project


Background – This research project supports the research component of Psi Beta’s mission: Professional development of students through promotion and recognition of excellence in scholarship, leadership, research, and community service. Psi Beta will provide participating chapters with the research instruments, a beginning list of references, an informed consent form, and a suggested hypothesis. Individual Psi Beta students, working through their local chapter, can use the database derived from this project to test several hypotheses.

The database derived from this study will be shared ONLY with the participating chapters who have complied will the conditions listed below. Data will be released upon the request of the participating chapter advisor.  Data from this study can be used to write an APA-format research paper that could be used to compete for the national research paper award, and to prepare and present a research poster at a local, regional, and/or national psychology conference.

Conditions for Chapter Participation – Each chapter must notify Psi Beta that it intends to participate. Notify Jerry Rudmann, Psi Beta’s Executive Director, by email – jrudmann@ivc.edu. The notification must be received on or before December 15, 2009. The application must be sent by the primary advisor of the local Psi Beta chapter. By sending the application, the chapter commits to the following guidelines for chapter participation:

1. MUST GATHER DATA FROM AT LEAST 30 PARTICIPANTS – The chapter will submit data from a minimum of 30 different participants. Data from more than 30 participants is highly encouraged, but not required. The data-gathering script must be used to help standardize the study’s data-gathering procedure.

2. INFORMED CONSENT – Each participant must sign the informed consent form prior to completing the study’s assessment instrument.

3. DEBRIEF PROCEDURE – After each participant completes the paper version of the assessment battery, researchers from the participating chapter will debrief all participants using the debriefing script.

4. ELECTRONIC DATA SUBMISSION – After gathering the data using a paper version of the assessment battery, each chapter will submit data to the Psi Beta National Office electronically by keying-in each of its participant’s responses to the Psi Beta online data-input form. This form is designed especially for this study and will be provided to participating chapters on the Psi Beta website.

5. DATA SUBMISSION DUE DATE – All data must be submitted no later than February 28, 2010.

6. RESEARCH DATABASE – The database will be released in two formats: Excel and SPSS. The entire database will be made available by March 10, 2010.

7. IRB – The Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Irvine Valley College has approved this study and this approval includes participation of all Psi Beta chapters that comply with the participation conditions stipulated here.

8. INSTRUMENTATION – The research instrument for this study consists of set of scales developed by psychologists who have been studying personal happiness. The scales are designed to measure:

* Appreciation (Tucker, 2007),
* Gratitude (Emmons & McCollough, 2003),
* Happiness (Lyubomirsky & Lepper,1999),
* Satisfaction With Life (Diener, Emmons, Larson, & Griffen (1985),
* Self-Esteem (Rosenberg, 1965),
* Optimism (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 2001).

9. SCRIPTS – The following scripts must be used to standardize the procedure used to gather research data for the study: instructor recruitment script, data-gathering script, and the debriefing script.

10. HYPOTHESIS – Research hypothesis: There is a positive relationship between an individual’s happiness and that of his or her best friend. Statistical hypothesis: There is no relationship between one’s happiness score on the Subjective Happiness Scale, and the participant’s rating of his/her closest friend on the Subjective Happiness Scale. Note that the operational definition of happiness, for the purposes of this study, will be scores on the Subjective Happiness Scale. This scale has been published and administered in many countries. There may be several ways to test the hypothesis – one being to examine the correlation between self-reported happiness and participants’ estimated happiness for their close friends, for participants who score below the average happiness score and again for participants who score above the average happiness score.

Additional hypotheses can be developed from the database produced by this study. Below are several of many possible hypotheses that could be researched using the database to which you will have access:

  • Gratitude and happiness are positively related.
  • The correlation between one’s own happiness of that of one’s best friend will be stronger for female than male participants.
  • There is an inverse relationship between self-esteem and appreciation.
  • Age and gender are related to happiness.
    The purpose of including these extra assessment instruments is to provide local Psi Beta students with enough data to enable them to conduct several different studies.

Resource Documents
Study Abstract
Instructor Recruitment Script
Assessment Instrument (make copies of this for your participants to complete)
Consent Form
Data-Gathering Script
Debriefing Script
References
Data-Entry Link (use this to input participant data to Psi Beta)