Story and photos by Logan Jackson
- Nya Dodd – junior philosophy and psychological sciences double major
- Mentor: Sean Lane, associate professor or psychological sciences
Nya Dodd jumped into her first research project last semester as part of the Regulation of Emotion, Addiction, and Conflict Trajectories (REACT) Laboratory. Led by Sean Lane, an associate professor of psychological sciences, the lab focuses on the development of quantitative models of personality and psychopathology.
Dodd has been able to build on that research this summer through the Cherng Summer Scholars program.
A nine-week research or creative scholarship program for Mizzou students who are pursuing the Honors Certificate, the Cherng Summer Scholars program allows students to participate in individually designed projects under the mentorship of a Mizzou faculty member. The program is supported by a gift from Peggy and Andrew Cherng and the Panda Charitable Foundation.
“The Cherng Summer Scholars program has been very organized; it’s really clear what our daily and weekly expectations are,” said Dodd, a junior philosophy and psychological sciences double major. “It’s been great to discuss my project with the other students in the cohort, and the expense account has really elevated my project. I’m very thankful to be part of the program.”
Dodd conducted a meta-analysis last semester, looking at the relationship between borderline personality disorder symptomatology and existential anxiety.
“This is a very specific and complex combination, and there really isn’t a lot of research out there,” Dodd said. “I think I found a total of like 34 research articles tied to the subject. A lot of the symptomatology is ambiguous. For example, chronic emptiness is one of the main symptoms and that can be really tough to describe or diagnose.”
After completing the meta-analysis, Dodd formulated a table that contained each of the nine symptoms of borderline personality disorder and each existential anxiety topic. She mapped out the positive and negative associations and completed a brief summary on each relationship.
This summer, Dodd has been able to move into the experimental design phase of the project. She has developed an online survey that will help measure borderline personality disorder symptoms in participants.
“Participants are assigned either an anxiety induction video or a neutral stimulus after the questionnaire,” Dodd said. “Another questionnaire then follows about the state of anxiety the participant is feeling in the moment. I’m able to collect a lot of data through the surveys and questionnaires, which is exciting.”
To work with human subjects, Dodd was required to submit her plans to an institutional review board. There are multiple details that go into that submission, from the questions that will be asked down to how participants will be accommodated for participating.
“That’s been a long process but a very important one in terms of learning what all goes into this type of research,” Dodd said. “My hope is that I’ll be able to pull data from individuals across the country.”