Psy-Splash

Ever since my first study idea was abandoned (see my last entry), I have been confronted with the challenge of finding a new topic to write about. I have mounds and mounds of literature collected about blogs, meaning that it is best to continue with my current subject. I have completed reviewing all of the updated literature that I found, and over the past week have been gradually developing a study question. I’m excited because I think I’ve finally nailed something simple and feasible to work with.

One of the controversies that surrounds using blogs for self-therapy or as a part of structured writing therapy is the risk that putting private information online poses. There is risk to self-esteem and ego, it can damage real-world relationships (or other previously established relationships) because of the potential for rejection or criticism. There are things that we are all embarrassed about, and while sharing them helps us overcome the shame, negative reactions can increase it.

On the other hand, because of the anonymity, the Internet provides the opportunity to be able to disclose this information with leaving little personal to self-esteem. The author’s personal identity and relationships are not at risk, and therefore there is less of barrier when disclosing the most painful secrets.

Comments (systems that allow readers to comment on articles or other posted material, such as Facebook comments or the comments on this blog) unleash the full potential of Internet discourse in that they allow for the validation of disclosure to the masses. When a blogger posts an entry, there is no evidence that anyone read that post. However, feedback from readers solidifies any questions that one might have about the visibility of their disclosure. Reader participation has been sited by many studies as a reinforcing element in the use of blogging for various purposes (e.g. as a teaching tool for graduate students learning Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy or for high school writing classes). Reader participation has been key in developing online communities as well. Some of these communities even serve a therapeutic purpose, sharing common experiences of a traumatic event or theme.

When it comes to therapeutic writing, reader feedback (via a Comment system) can encourage bloggers to continue their disclosure and provide encouragement that they are not being judged. A Japanese study has found that negative comments tended to be externalized (i.e. attributed to the reader, e.g. “that guys must have been in a bitter mood to post something so rude on my blog”) and positive comments were internalized (i.e. attributed to the writer, e.g. “That guy was really impressed by what I wrote, I must have done something right”) by the study participants. Such an attitude would only increase the effect that user feedback would have on reinforcing blogging behavior. However, because of cultural differences, those results may not generalize to an American or a world-wide audience. My study will examine real world frequencies of blogging and length of blog entries (as opposed to subjective feedback given on surveys) as an indicator of the reinforcing effect of Comments.

I will examine a great many therapeutic blogs, specifically looking at the comments provided. Positive and negative comments will be coded and counted. The frequency and length of blog postings will be examined over the life of a blog, and statistics will be run to determine any correlation with the frequency of comments. The effect of positive vs. negative feedback will also be examined.

This study will be different from any other study about blogs and therapeutic writing that I have encountered in that it will look at short-lived blogs. Looking at only successful blogs (as all other researchers I have come across have done) fails to acknowledge the experience of the vast majority of bloggers. Past research has shown that there is an incredible amount of ‘blog-churn’ (blogs that die soon after they are started). Some factors are contributing to the author’s decision to stick with their blog or to abandon it. Past research has shown that personality may be one of the factors. Negative emotions are elicited from writing about traumatic events, and in the case of a person blogging for self-therapy, this could be another reason for abandoning the blog. By looking at patterns of blogging participation as evidence of the effects of reader participation, this study will attempt to contribute to the development of an online writing therapy. In other words, I am trying to see if Comments are a helpful part online writing therapy.

There are three major concerns that I have about this proposed idea. The first is that it might not be closely related enough to Clinical Psychology. While I am applying it to blogs that have the intention of providing self-therapy (and thus, bloggers will be disclosing personal information that will be a strong target for negative feedback and criticism), it could just as easily be applied to regular blogs that have nothing to do with therapy. Indeed, if anyone cites the results in the future they would probably be applied to Commenting systems in general. The second problem is that abandoned blogs are difficult to find. Ping Sites post a constant list of updated blogs in real-time as they are made. The front page of Xanga and other similar sites feature recently updated blogs. What these sources do not link to are abandoned blogs. While there are many out there, if they are inactive, there’s no real use for people to find them, and thus no reason to link to them. The final, and most significant flaw to this study is that most, if not all, blog commenting systems give the blogger the ability to delete unwanted comments. If someone received a particularly harmful comment, there is a good chance that they would delete it. This means that there would be no public record of the comment, and thus no way for this study to examine the effect of the negative comment. The only solution that I can think of would be to contact the authors of each and every blog I examine in order to send them a simple survey that would ask if they had ever deleted a comment because it was negative or hurtful, and then what blog entry they deleted it from. If I don’t contact the blog authors, I save myself a ton of paperwork and headache. If I do, I run the risk of having many of them refusing to participate in my study. The quantitative element of this study requires a large number of blogs to be effective. I could do the study and ignore the fact that a lot of harmful comments could have been deleted, but it’s such a critical confound that the study might not get approved.

I didn’t post an update in March, so I will be sure to be more active through April.

In a nutshell: in looking through the new literature that I dug up from the library last month, I concluded that discovering the personality of bloggers is not the natural inquiry that one would make after consuming the information presented. In other words, it doesn’t make sense to test for personality when I really would like to know if blogging makes you mentally healthier. So now the problem is one that I thought I solved years ago when I decided to test for personality: how do you get a measure of psychological health?

Other studies have used participants’ physiological health, although that is not that accurate of a measurement, since it assumes that baseline physiological immune functioning is hindered by psychological concerns. I have thought about using an established Quality of Life assessment tool, but I am not sure what is out there to use that is cheap, easily available, and validated for online use. Another option would be for me to do a qualitative study. The problem here is that I don’t have a lot of experience with qualitative studies, so I am reading some chapters for a book to see if it would do me any good in this situation. The last option is the easiest but cheapest (“cheap” as in a suck-punch thrown in a fight) and do a self-report survey. This will mean that my study won’t hold much merit other than saying “these people think blogging helped them feel better”, which we all know doesn’t mean much. Still, if it will get my dissertation done, then it might be the best thing to do. I am meeting with my coach either this Wednesday or Friday to figure it out.

One of the things that I don’t like about having my own blog is the amount of spam that I used to get. I spent 40 minute chunks at a time cleaning it out. As a result, I ask that anyone wishing to comment (something I highly encourage) either register for a WordPress username or simply log into Facebook, and then allow Facebook to connect with my site.

I understand how much of an inconvenience it is to create a separate user name and then to remember yet another password. Once you have done this, you can even “like” posts! With Facebook Connect, you don’t have to. Just use your Facebook account, and everyone’s life is far simpler. Facebook will attempt to publish stuff to your newsfeed: it you allow this, more people will see my blog. Of course, if they don’t know me, they probably won’t care about my dissertation.

Because of the advice of my dissertation coach, I went back to the library last weekend. My goal was to see what new studies have been done about blogs in the four years since I first waded through the literature. Back then, no one studied blogs, especially not psychologists. I came away with nothing for background research except for a few layman books on how to create your own blog. Four years later, I discover that psychologists got busy: both of my ideas for studies have already been done. One was published in 2008, the other was published last year. Crud.

On the one hand, it’s validating that my ideas were good enough to get published. It gives me confidence going forward that I am on the same level as the pros. One of the studies (the one that tried to predict what personality type bloggers have) even supported my hypothesis. The bad part is, however, that someone else robbed me of my idea. I could have had this thing published 2 years ago, and then those other people would be the ones reading my study, saying “Crap, this guy beat us to it!”

May artists, creators and inventors are familiar with a concept introduced by Allan Moore (the author of Watchmen) known as the “Idea Space”. Basically, once you come up with an idea, there is a very strong chance that someone else out there came up with the exact same idea. It reminds me of same meta-physical thinking that lead Carl Jung to create the concept of the Collective Unconscious. It is now a race to see who can get their idea published first. As we all know, History is not about what actually happened, but how it was documented. Ask Alfred Russel Wallace, Elisha Gray, or many others. I’ve personally created character concepts and a book concept only to have someone publish sometime incredibly similar a year or so later. While I don’t know how much of the spiritual component I believe, I definitely believe that some type of mechanism is at work here.

Regardless, I have some new material to work with, a lot more reading to do, and hopefully, very soon, a new direction.

The dean informed me that I am getting close to the maximum allotted time allowed for dissertations. In order for me to apply for an extension (the absolute last extension that I can apply for), I was required to submit a report explaining my current progress and my plan for completing the project. In my enthusiasm to make the report sound encouraging, I mentioned that I would be hiring a dissertation coach.

Crud. It wasn’t intending to hire anyone (at least not consciously), but because of my big mouth I now feel the need to follow up on my word. This could get expensive, but at the very least I will not be going at this thing alone.

I am actually a bit excited about this, and I have been working on my dissertation again. I should note that because it took me so long to hire a coach (procrastination, of course), I am now behind on the deadlines I created when I wrote the report.

First of all, I’d like to thank you for reading. I am going to make the assumption that if you are reading this, #1 you know me. And #2 you know that I have been working on my dissertation for several years. Don’t let those words fool you- when I say “working”, I mean that I started it at one time and then never finished. But now, I am actively working on it.
I created this blog as a place to chronicle my progress. It is the place where people who want to know where I am in the process, or what I have done can come to learn. If you see that I have not made progressed or have not updated this blog, don’t feel bad about bugging me or pressuring me to get back to work.
At the moment, I am re-writing the entire Literature Review section of my Dissertation in order to make it flow better and to weed out the extraneous information. When I did the original writing, I was writing for length. I was Charles Dickens writing A Tale Of Two Cities and every word was a dollar. Sadly, I will be cutting out a great deal of that length, but the content will be far more solid.
When I have that re-write complete, I am going to upload it onto iWork.com so that anyone can see my progress exactly. If you have suggestions or just see that I haven’t written anything new in a while, leave a comment or call me directly.
Take care, and again, thank you for reading.