Unit 12

1. Take the Five Factor Personality Test.
   1. Answer as honestly as you can.
   2. After completing the entire test (which is actually a questionnaire), you’ll be given a description of your scores.
   3. Save the description of your “Results” (either as a screenshot or as a copy/paste/save into Word doc, Google doc, or other app).
   4. You will need to have the description of these results to complete this assignment.
2. Take the The Big Five Personality Test.
   1. Again, answer as honestly as you can.
   2. Save the graph of your scores (either as a screenshot or as a copy/paste/save into Word doc, Google doc, or other app), because again you will need these scores to complete this assignment.
   3. IMPORTANT: You do NOT need to “Unlock My Full Report.” You only need to have access to the graph, as shown in the green box in this screenshot.
3. Read Kendra Cherry’s (no date) About.com article, “The Big Five Personality Dimensions: 5 Major Factors of Personality.”
4. Read Maggie Koerth-Baker’s (2018) article, “Most Personality Quizzes Are Junk Science. I Found One That Isn’t.”
5. Read Jill Chang’s (2023) article, “What Everyone Can Learn from Introverts.”
6. Watch Susan Cain’s (2012) TED talk, “The Power of Introverts.” [A transcript is available in 44 languages here.]
7. Lastly, because later in this Unit, we will be talking about whether personality affects Internet use (and this entire course is about psychological effects of the Internet), now’s the time to learn now (if you don’t already know) the difference between the words affect and effect.
   • Read Vocabulary.com’s (no date) article, “Choose Your Words: Affect / Effect.”
   • Read Grammar Girl’s (2016) article, “Affect vs. Effect.”
   • Take the GrammarBook.com’s “Affect vs. Effect Quiz 1” (which is a fillable PDF).
   1. 1. First, download the unfilled PDF from the Course Website and save the unfilled PDF onto your own computer.
      2. Second, rename the unfilled PDF (that you have saved on your computer) to be YourLastName_PSY-532_Fillable_Affect-Effect_Quiz.pdf.
      3. Third, on your computer, open a PDF writer app, such as Preview, Adobe Reader, or the like. Be sure to open your PDF writer app first, before you open the unfilled PDF file.
      4. Fourth, from within your PDF writer app, open the unfilled PDF file.
      5. Fifth, using your PDF writer app, fill in the PDF.
      6. Be sure to save your filled-in PDF on your computer.
8. Go to the Unit 12: Assignment #1 and #3 Discussion Board and make a new post of at least 200 words in which you answer all the following questions:
   1. What are the Big Five Personality Dimensions/Factors/Traits (according to Cherry’s, no date, article AND according to Koerth-Baker’s, 2018, article)?
   2. Why are Big Five Personality Tests more reliable than other online personality tests (according to Koerth-Baker’s, 2018, article)?
   3. What were your results on both the Five Factor Personality Test and the Big Five Personality Test?
   4. Were your results similar across the two tests?
   5. Do these results match your own conception of your personality?
   6. What did you think about Jill Chang’s (2023) and Susan Cain’s (2012) ideas about introverts?
   7. Do you think there are benefits to the ‘low’ side of any of the other four factors/dimensions of the Big Five Personality Dimensions/Factors?
   8. Lastly, attach your completed “Affect vs. Effect Quiz 1” saved as a PDF and named YourLastName_PSY-532_Fillable_Affect-Effect_Quiz.pdf (to attach your PDF, click on the word “Attach” that is directly underneath the text box of the Discussion Board and that is accompanied by a paperclip icon).

Unit 12: Assignment #2 (due before 11:59 pm Central on TUE APR 16):

1. Read Jeremy Miles’s (2013) article, “What Does ‘Proportion of Variance Explained’ Mean?“
2. Carefully examine the tables presented in the document, “Meta-Analyses: Proportion of Variance in Social Media Use Explained by Personality Factors.”
   1. This document summarizes the results of four major meta-analyses, each of which examined how much variance in social media use can be explained by personality factors.
   2. Combined, the four meta-analyses describe data from over 500 independent samples and nearly 100,000 research participants.
   3. The studies included in the meta-analyses examined personality as classified by the Big Five Factor classification.
3. When examining these tables, keep the following points in mind:
   1. Each table presents the proportion of variance in an aspect of social media use explained by the variables measured in the study. (Refer back to Miles’s article to make sure you understand what ‘proportion of variance explained’ means.)
   2. The variables in the tables are mostly personality factors (such as the Big Five) and some demographic factors (such as how much time the participants spent online).
4. Pay particular attention to how little variance is explained by personality variables.
   1. Most all the personality factors explain less than 3% of the variance in various aspects of social media use.
   2. In fact, most all the personality facts explain merely an insubstantial (0% or 1%) of the variance.
5. Read Kris-Stella Trump’s (2018) article, “Four and a Half Reasons Not to Worry that Cambridge Analytica Skewed the 2016 Election.”
6. Read an excerpt from Andy Kroll’s (2018) article, “Cloak and Data: The Real Story Behind Cambridge Analytica’s Rise and Fall.”
7. Go to the Unit 12: Assignment #2 Discussion Board and make a new post of at least 200 words in which you explain
   1. in your own words what you learned about “proportion of variance explained”;
   2. what you learned from examining the tables in the “Meta-Analyses: Proportion of Variance in Social Media Use Explained by Personality Factors” document; and
   3. whether you think Cambridge Analytica could have done what they claimed to have done (according to the two articles about this topic that you read, which you should reference by the authors’ names).

Unit 12: Assignment #3 (due before 11:59 pm Central on WED APR 17):

1. Go to the Unit 12: Assignment #1 and #3 Discussion Board and read all the posts written by the other members of your section.
2. Review from the Course Syllabus the “Best Way to Respond to Another Student’s Discussion Board Post” (p. 6). Remember that your responses should always include at least two of the four recommended components.
3. Then, write TWO response posts:
   1. one response post should be to a student whose Big Five Personality profile is the most similar to yours, and
   2. the other response post should be to a student whose Big Five Personality profile is the least similar to yours.
   3. Each of your two response posts should be at least 200 words.
   4. If two other students in your section have not yet posted on the Unit 12: Assignment #1 Discussion Board, you will need to wait until they do OR until the due date for Unit 12: Assignment #1 has passed.
   5. You will not be held responsible for responding to two other students’ posts if the Unit 12: Assignment #1 due date has passed, and two other students have not yet posted on Unit 12: Assignment #1 Discussion Board.

Unit 12: Assignment #4 (due before 11:59 pm Central on FRI APR 19):

1. First, watch Professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video “On Selfies” [a captioned version is here, and a transcript is here].
2. Then, choose ONE of the following questions and complete its associated activities.
   1. Do rats like taking selfies?
      • Read Anthes’ (2024) article, “Our Rodent Selfies, Ourselves.”
      • Read Ronald’s (2024) article, “Say Cheese: Rats Like Taking Selfies, Too.”
      • Read Government Tech’s (2024) article, “Do Rats Like Taking Selfies?“
      • OPTIONAL READING: Conklin’s (2024) article, “We Asked AI What It Would Look Like If Dogs Could Take Selfies.”
   2. Can selfies be art? 
      • Read Brown’s (2018) article, “Selfie as Art at the Saatchi: From Rembrandt to a Grinning Macaque.”
      • Read McIntosh’s (2017) article, “Can Selfies Really Be Art? London’s Saatchi Gallery Thinks So.”
      • Read Samuelson’s (2017) article, “Do Selfies Constitute Art? This New Exhibition Says Yes.”
      • Watch ErasedCulture’s (2017) brief video walk-through of the Saatchi Art Gallery exhibit: From Selfie to Self Expression.
   3. Can selfies empower people with disabilities? 
      • Read Hitselberger‘s (2017) blog post, “#TakeBackStaring: The Power of a Selfie.”
      • Read Hitselberger‘s (no date) “About Me” page for her blog.
      • Read McNamara’s (2017) article, “Twitter Trend #DisabledAndCute Is Empowering Disabled People.”
      • Read Narins’ (2017) article, “These Sassy #DisabledAndCute Tweets Will Give You Life.”
      • Look through the #DisabledAndCute Twitter hashtag.
   4. Why don’t we think we look like our selfies? 
      • Read Feeney’s (2014) article, “Why Selfies Sometimes Look Weird to Their Subjects.”
      • Read Krause’s (2018) article, “The Scientific Reason Why You Look Different in Selfies than IRL.”
      • Read an extract from PhotoFeeler’s (2017) blog post, “Do You Look Different in Pictures than in Real Life? Yes, and Here’s How.”
   5. Why do most people take selfies showing a right-side bias? 
      • Read Bruno & Bertami’s (2013) article, “Self-Portraits: Smartphones Reveal a Side Bias in Non-Artists.”
   6. Who owns the copyright to a monkey’s selfie?
      • Read Kravet’s (2015) article, “Will the Real Monkey Who Snapped Those Famous Selfies Please Stand Up?” and his (2016) article, “Judge Says Monkey Cannot Own Copyright to Famous Selfies.”
      • Read Thanawala’s (2018) article, “Lawsuit Settled Over Rights to Monkey’s Selfie Photo.”
3. Go to the Unit 12: Assignment #4 Discussion Board and make a new post of at least 200 words in which you do the following:
   1. First, discuss the two aspects of selfies from Professor Gernsbacher’s lecture video that surprised you the most — and why those two aspects of selfies surprised you the most.
   2. Second, answer the question that you chose from the set of five questions above (in b.).
      • When answering the question you chose, be sure to reference, by the authors’ names, ALL the materials you examined; and
      • explain why you chose to learn the answer to that question (e.g., do you have a personal interest in that topic?).

Unit 12: Assignment #5 (due before 11:59 pm Central on SUN APR 21):

1. Meet online with your NEW Chat Group (which you formed during Unit 8) for a one-hour text-based Group Chat at a time/date that your Chat Group previously arranged.
2. Prior to your one-hour Group Chat, you MUST do the following:
   1. Everyone: Read a few definitions of the term “humblebrag.”
   2. Everyone: Read closely the Abstract (p. 2) and skim-read the Introduction (pp. 3-15) to Sezer, Gina, and Norton’s (2017) paper, “Humblebragging: A Distinct – and Ineffective – Self-Presentation Strategy.”
   3. If you are in a three-person Chat Group:
      • If your last name comes first in your Chat Group, read about Sezer et al.’s (2017) Study 1a, Study 1b, and Study 1c (p. 16 through top of p. 24).
      • If your last name comes last in your Chat Group, read about Sezer et al.’s (2017) Study 2 (pp. 24-26) and Study 4 (pp. 39-44).
      • If your last name comes neither first nor last in your Chat Group, read about Sezer et al.’s (2017) Study 3a (pp. 27-33) and Study 3b (pp. 34-38).
   4. If you are in a two-person Chat Group:
      • If your last name comes first in your Chat Group, read about Sezer et al.’s (2017) Study 1a, Study 1b, and Study 1c (p. 16 through top of p. 24) and Study 2 (pp. 24-26).
      • If your last name comes last in your Chat Group, read about Sezer et al.’s (2017) Study 3a (pp. 27-33),  Study 3b (pp. 34-38), and Study 4 (pp. 39-44).
   5. Everyone: Read closely the first page of Sezer et al.’s (2017) Discussion (p. 45) and skim read the rest of the Discussion (pp. 46-49).
   6. NOTE: The document you’re reading is considered a preprint of a subsequently published journal article. In this course, we’re reading the preprint version because the subsequently published article is available only to subscribers of the journal (i.e., the journal article is behind a paywall).
3. Begin your one-hour Group Chat by doing the following: Each Chat Group member needs to indicate ONE of the nine “How Are You Feeling At the START of Today’s Group Chat?” images. More than one Chat Group member can indicate the same image if that’s how they are feeling, and please refer to each image by its number.
   
4. During your one-hour Group Chat:
   1. First, begin your one-hour Group Chat by discussing, as a group,
      • the definition of humblebragging;
      • whether each of you has experienced humblebragging;
      • if so, when and where did you experience humblebragging, and
      • how did you feel reading (or hearing) someone else’s humblebrag?
   2. Second, as a group, discuss
      • the purpose of Sezer et al.’s (2017) paper (what you read in the Introduction) and
      • the general results from Sezer et al.’s (2017) paper (what you read in the Abstract and the Discussion).
   3. Third, each member of the Chat Group should take turns telling the other members of the Chat Group about the specific studies they were assigned to read. For each study, explain to the other member/s:
      • how each study was conducted;
      • what major results were observed for each study; and
      • what the results of each study suggest.
   4. Fourth, as a group, discuss and decide what you would tell a close friend (or roommate or significant other), the next time they humblebragged about the likely effects of their humblebrag.
5. At the end of your one-hour Group Chat:
   1. First, nominate one member of your Chat Group (who participated in the Chat) to make a post on the Unit 12: Assignment #5 Discussion Board that summarizes your Group Chat in at least 200 words.
   2. Second, nominate another member of your Chat Group (who participated in the Group Chat using the browser Chrome on their laptop, rather than on their mobile device) to save the Chat transcript, in PDF, as described in the Course How To (under the topic, “How To Save and Attach a Chat Transcript”), and attach the Chat transcript, in PDF, to a Unit 12: Assignment #5 Discussion Board post.
   3. Third, nominate a third member of your Chat Group (who also participated in the Chat) to make a post on the Unit 12: Assignment #5 Discussion Board that states the name of the assignment (Unit 12: Assignment #5), the full name of your Chat Group, the first and last name of each Chat Group member who participated in the Group Chat, the day and date of your Group Chat (e.g., SUN SEP 3), and the start and stop time of your Group Chat.
   4. If only two persons participated in the Chat, then one of those two persons needs to do two of the above three tasks.
   5. Before ending the Group Chat, do the following:
      • Each Chat Group member needs to indicate ONE of the nine “How Are You Feeling at the END of Today’s Group Chat?” images. More than one Chat Group member can indicate the same image if that’s how they are feeling, and please refer to each image by its number.
      • NOTE: The “How Are You Feeling at the END of Today’s Group Chat” grid of images differs from the “How Are You Feeling at the START of Today’s Group Chat” grid of images.
      • As a group, the Chat Group needs to arrange the time and date for the Group Chat you will need to hold during the next Unit (Unit 13: Assignment #5).

Unit 12: Assignment #6 (due before 11:59 pm Central on SUN APR 21):

1. Complete the Unit 12 Course Review Sheet (which is a fillable PDF; refer to previous Units’ instructions for how to download onto your own device, save on your own device, rename on your own device, and then fill in on your own device — by typing, not copying — a fillable PDF).
   1. Rename the unfilled PDF to be YourLastName_PSY-532_Unit12_CourseReview.pdf; then fill it in by typing, not copying.
   2. Remember that each Course Review Sheet in this course will be cumulative, so be sure to fill in by typing ALL pages.
2. Make progress on your Term Project.
   1. If you’ve chosen the Whole Course option, overview/journal the current unit (Unit 12).
      • Take a partial screenshot of your overview/journal of Unit 12 in your presentation medium (i.e., in your blog, Tumblr, Pinterest board, website, video, podcast, Prezi, Slideshare, PPT, Keynote, or Google slide deck). Make sure your partial screenshot shows the Unit number of the Unit being overviewed/journaled.

   2. If you’ve chosen the Deep Dive option, produce another approximately 1/3 of your Term Project.

      • Take a partial screenshot demonstrating in some way that you have produced approximately 2/3 of your Term Project (1/3 during the last unit, and 1/3 during this unit).
   3. Compose at least 200 words describing
      • which project you’ve chosen (if you’ve chosen the Whole Course option of assembling a detailed overview of the course for an audience other than college students, be sure to identify your intended audience; if you’ve chosen the Deep Dive option, be sure to tell us which topic/question you’ve chosen),
      • which presentation medium you’ve chosen,
      • and the work you completed on your Term Project during this unit. Remember that you should be allocating about two hours per Unit to your Term Project.
   4. Save your at-least-200 words as a PDF that includes your partial screenshot and that is named YourLastName_PSY-532_Unit12_TermProject.pdf. The text in your partial screenshot does not count toward the at-least-200 words you are required to compose.
3. Go to Unit 12: Assignment #6 (which is an Assignment link, not a Discussion Board) and do the following:
   1. First, use the “File Upload” tool to attach/upload your completed Unit 12 Course Review Sheet (click “Choose File” to attach/upload your filled-in PDF);
   2. Second, click on “+ Add Another File” to attach/upload your 200-word composition about your Term Project (saved in PDF; remember to include your screenshot in your PDF); and
   3. Third, immediately after submitting your assignment, check to make sure that your filled-in PDF is really filled-in (that it isn’t empty) and that your PDF about your Term Project is also attached and complete.

Congratulations, you have finished Unit 12! Onward to Unit 13!