Article Review Paper

I have attached the article that needs to be used at the bottom of this assignment. 

Step One (required): Please watch this youtube video (https://youtu.be/uxKZ_DFaGlI ) that outlines the overall project for you. I recorded this for a *different* on-line class, so the info. will vary ‘a bit’. However, for the most part, the info. applies to this class as well. 

Step Two (required): Please review this description of the assignment (Assignment adapted from Marc W. Patry at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada). You should prepare concise (maximum 6 double-spaced typed pages, standard margins and 12-point font size) papers which include four enumerated sections: 1) summary and analysis (e.g., strengths & weaknesses) of a primary-source empirical article related to personality psychology that I assign, 2) tie-in between the article I assign and a concept from the assigned reading that we discuss in class, 3) relationship between the article I assign and a recent news story that you find on your own (attach a newspaper clipping to your paper), and 4) some connection of this topical area to your own life and personal interests. 

These elements must be enumerated in your papers. Basically, these papers require you to digest a study related to personality psychology and to connect it to the assigned reading, to current events, and to something about yourself. Feel free to be creative about how you meet these objectives. I expect these papers to be highly varied, colorful, thoughtful and well written. Make sure to have fun with these papers! Your grades for these papers will be on a 30-point basis: up to six points for each of the four elements, and up to six points for writing (e.g., grammar, flow). These papers are to be no longer than six double-spaced typed pages of text (12-point font, standard margins). Be aware that you will be penalized if you exceed the six-page text limit (or effectively exceed it by using less than double spacing, reducing margin size or text size, etc.). 

Step Three (optional): Please watch this Youtube video to learn more about reading empirical journal articles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2K6mJkSWoA). Journal articles are not the same as popular press articles (e.g., magazine articles). If you have limited prior experience with reading and reviewing journal articles, you may find it helpful to take a look at the Youtube video that is linked above. That video outlines the major parts of the empirical journal articles and how to effectively direct your attention as you read these types of articles. The following also is another Youtube video that you might want to check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BuE138KK18. 

Step Four (optional): Please take a look at some examples; I’ve posted two on the BB page for this class. Please feel free to take a look at these as you begin to prepare your own papers. A word to the  wise: DO NOT use these papers as word-for-word templates. Instead, use them as examples for formatting your paper. 

Step Five (required): This is the article about which you will write your paper. Read the whole thing so that your review can reflect depth (and be eligible for full credit). Panagopoulos, C., & Lehrfeld J.M. (2015) Big Five Personality Traits and Occupy Wall Street. Psychology,06,1597-1563. doi: 10.4236/psych.2015.615193 

C.

Panagopoulos, J

.

L. Lehrfeld

C. Panagopoulos, J. L. Lehrfeld

Psychology, 2015, 6, 1957-1963

Published Online December 2015 in SciRes.

http://www.scirp.org/journal/psych

http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2015.615193

Big Five Personality Traits and Occupy Wall Street

Costas Panagopoulos1[footnoteRef:1], Jonathan L. Lehrfeld2 [1: *Corresponding author.

How to cite this paper: Panagopoulos, C., & Lehrfeld, J. L. (2015). Big Five Personality Traits and Occupy Wall Street. Psychology, 6, 1957-1963. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2015.615193 ]

1 Department of Political Science, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA

2 Department of Psychology, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA

Received 18 October 2015; accepted 29 November 2015; published 3 December 2015

Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Abstract

We investigated Big Five personality traits for a novel sample of individuals engaged in politically and economically-charged protest activity at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York City. We gathered data about protesters’ personality traits by administering the TIPI battery in a survey conducted in October 2011. We compared distributions of Big Five traits for the sample with population norms. We expected our sample to show higher levels of extraversion, openness, and emotional stability, and lower levels of agreeableness, compared to norms, with no difference in conscientiousness. We found mixed support for our hypotheses: our sample showed higher levels of emotional stability and extraversion, lower levels of agreeableness, and no differences in conscientiousness, but lower levels of openness.

Keywords

Big Five, Political Behavior, Protesters, TIPI, Personality

Introduction

We investigated Big Five personality traits for a novel sample of individuals engaged in politically and economically-charged protest activity at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York City in the fall of 2011. The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests around the country attracted considerable attention in the political and economic news for much of the latter half of 2011 and beyond. No study of which we are aware has focused on the personality dimensions of this group of individuals. In what follows, we give a brief background of the

OWS

movement and then proceed to review relevant literature on the relationship of personality to political activities including prior protest movements. We present evidence about the five-factor structure of OWS protesters’ personalities using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). At first pass, the OWS protesters appear to possess some unique attributes that could help shed light on some of the driving forces behind the movement.

Occupy Wall Street: Background

The OWS movement started in New York City just after the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The movement largely comprised individuals who desired changes in national economic policy. The movement has been buffeted by reports from various economic groups. One example is an October 26, 2011 report by the Economic Policy Institute that found that the income of the top 1 percent of households in 2007 was 42 times greater than the average incomes of the bottom 90 percent combined (Mishel & Bivens, 2011). The study also showed that the income of the top 0.1 percent of households was 220 times greater than that of the bottom 90 percent combined. Such reports quickly led to the adoption of the slogan, “We are the 99 percent.” The slogan has become almost instantly recognizable to anybody who follows news coverage of political or economic events.

The OWS movement has also been identified with questionable police activity. Protesters who were wearing masks were arrested near the end of September 2011, and a controversial mass arrest occurred during a march across the Brooklyn Bridge. In the beginning of October 2011, the OWS movement spread to other cities in the US, including Boston, Oakland, San Francisco, and Austin. Police brutality was reported in these and other cities, in addition to New York City. On November 15, 2011, the New York City police began evicting protesters from Zuccotti Park, which had been the center of the OWS protests. At the time of this writing, the fervor surrounding the Occupy Wall Street protests has dissipated somewhat, although demonstrations continue to occur across the nation.

Personality, Political Behavior and Protest

Despite a paucity of published research on the OWS movement, there exists work on the intersection of personality assessment and political behavior that allows us to formulate specific hypotheses about OWS sample and how the distributions of personality traits may differ from the population at large. McClosky and colleagues (McClosky,

1958

) found that politically and economically conservative ideology is correlated with higher levels of anxiety and close-mindedness, which presumably would be analogous (when reverse-coded) to the Big Five measures of emotional stability and openness, respectively. Given that a large majority of the OWS protesters in our sample self-identified as “liberal” or “extremely liberal,” this could be informative in the current study.

More recently, the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, Jr., 2003) was used to show that conscientiousness and emotional stability tended to be associated with more conservative political, economic, and social opinions (Gerber, Huber, Doherty, Dowling, & Ha, 2010). Conversely, openness was associated with more liberal opinions on all three scales.

Agreeableness

and extraversion showed more mixed results: when it came to economic opinions, more liberal ideology correlated with more agreeableness and less extraversion, while for social opinions, more liberal ideology correlated with less agreeableness but not a significant change in extraversion. Later, the same authors found substantiating evidence for the associations of liberal ideology with openness, and for conservative ideology with conscientiousness and with emotional stability (Gerber, Huber, Doherty, & Dowling, 2011). Their study also revealed extraversion to be associated with more conservative ideology. Economic, but not social or political, liberalism, correlated with more agreeableness.

There have also been some relevant studies of personality factors among individuals engaged in political activities. Mondakand colleagues (Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson, & Anderson, 2010) found that various forms of political activities are associated with less emotional stability and (sometimes) less conscientiousness. Several authors (Curtin, Stewart, & Duncan, 2010), (Mondak & Halperin, 2008), (Steinbrecher & Schön, 2012), (Vecchione & Caprara, 2009) have found that more political engagement is associated with more openness and more extraversion.

Concerning protest behaviors more specifically, Abramowitz (Abramowitz, 1973) found that students who engaged in activist behaviors, whether or not politically oriented, scored lower on trait anxiety and psychological distress. People who attended rallies have also been shown to have higher levels of openness, extraversion, and self-efficacy than people who did not attend rallies, but little to no difference in conscientiousness (Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson, & Anderson, 2010). Individuals scoring highest in another sample of on extraversion were shown to have a 10% higher likelihood of attending political rallies than those who scored lowest on extraversion (Mondak, 2010). Finally, it has been shown that the likelihood of engaging in political protests was associated with more emotional stability and openness and less agreeableness (Brandstätter & Opp, 2014).

Using the discussion above and the findings in extant research as a launching pad, we develop the following hypotheses about how the distributions of personality traits among OWS protesters may contrast with the norm sample for the population (these are summarized in Table 1). Overall, we expect: 1) the OWS sample will show higher levels of extraversion, openness, and emotional stability compared to the norm sample, 2) the OWS sample will exhibit lower levels agreeableness compared to the norm sample, 3) there will be no significant difference in conscientiousness between the OWS sample and the norm sample. With regards to our first hypothesis, although there was mixed evidence for the connection between emotional stability and protest behaviors, we put the most weight on the most recent study (Brandstätter & Opp, 2014), which also used more sophisticated analysis methods to develop the link between this personality trait and protest behavior than the earlier study (Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson, & Anderson, 2010). For our second hypothesis, we note that despite some evidence linking liberal ideologies to agreeableness, it is counter to the nature of a protest to expect to find very agreeable people in attendance. Most protesters are there because they harbor passionate beliefs about the topic at hand.

Data and Methodology

We conducted a survey of the OWS protesters in October 2011. Our survey instrument was a single-sided, one- page questionnaire that was self-administered using paper and pencil. The survey probed respondents about their demographic attributes including age, education, gender, and race as well as political attitudes including presidential and Congressional approval, partisanship, and ideology. Crucially, for this study, the survey also included the

Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI)

(Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, Jr., 2003). The overall response rate for the survey was 78%.

Our sample comprises

264

individuals who took part in the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City in October 2011. One hundred and fifty-three (61%) respondents were male and 97 (39%) were female. The mean age was approximately 33 years. Sixty-eight respondents (27.2%) completed high school or obtained a GED, 40 (16%) completed 2 years of college, 75 (30%) completed 4 years of college, 55 (22%) completed some post- graduate work, and the rest did not complete high school. Most respondents (68%) identified as white, 25 (10%) as black or African American, 25 (10%) as Hispanic or Latino, and 18 (7.2%) as Asian. Additionally, 200 (80%) identified as left-of-liberal, 98 of whom (39%) identified as extremely liberal. Lastly, 120 respondents (48%) were employed full-time or part-time, 63 (25%) were students, and the rest were unemployed.

Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI)

We administered the TIPI to respondents who participated in the OWS survey. The TIPI is comprised of ten items, with one pair of items for each of the five factors in the Big Five personality model ([14]). One item in each pair is reverse-coded. In the TIPI, the factor typically known as Neuroticism is known as Emotional Stability, and the interpretation is reversed-that is, a low score on Neuroticism would be interpreted as a high score on

Emotional Stability. The authors of the TIPI (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, Jr., 2003) showed that it achieves

Table 1. Comparing OWS sample to norm sample on big five measures.

+

+

+

+

−

−

ns

Personality Factor	Hypothesis	Result
Emotional stability					+
	Extraversion
	Openness			−
	Agreeableness
	Conscientiousness		ns

Note: + indicates higher level of factor in OWS sample than thenorm sample, − indicates lower level of factor in OWS sample than the norm sample, ns indicates no significant difference in factor between OWS sample and the norm sample.

acceptable levels of convergent validity with other Big Five measures, as well as good test-retest reliability over multiple administrations. For the full measure, see Appendix A in (Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, Jr., 2003).

Sampling and Surveying Procedures

Our systematic observation of the OWS movement was conducted in mid-October 2011, about a month after the demonstrations began and while the protesters were assembled mainly at Zucotti Park in New York City. This was the first survey of the OWS protesters using a rigorous methodology and one of the first surveys overall.

The challenges associated with surveying crowds have been well documented, e.g. by Asher (2004). To maximize reliability, we followed procedures described by Heaney & Fabio (2007) in studying antiwar protests that took place in the United States in 2004-2005. Like Heaney & Fabio (2007), we drew nonprobability samples of protesters at Zucotti Park while taking aggressive measures to minimize sampling biases because of nonrandomness.

Two teams of surveyors were assembled and assigned to visit Zucotti Park on two separate days in mid-Oc- tober. Upon arriving, surveyors spanned out around the perimeter of the crowd at Zucotti Park. Each surveyor was instructed first to choose an individual from the crowd to serve as an “anchor” for selection. These anchors were not approached by the surveyor or invited to participate in the study. Instead, surveyors counted three individuals in a line from the anchor and invited the third person to participate in the survey. The surveyor then counted three persons from that individual and made another invitation. The process continued until ten respondents accepted surveys. It was acknowledge that such a sampling approach may produce biases in the initial selection of the anchors because of the spatial grouping of activists, but we expect these biases are minimized by selecting only individuals close to the anchors (rather than the anchors themselves) and by distributing the surveyors widely throughout the crowd (Heaney & Fabio, 2007).

Results

Table 2 presents mean distribution levels for each of the Big Five factors for the OWS sample along with the standard errors associated with these estimates. We also present the corresponding distributions for TIPI norms as reported in Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, Jr. (2003). We deploy a series of Welch two-sample t-tests Welch (1947) to compare mean levels of Big Five factors in our sample with the published norms. The Welch t-test was used instead of the more traditional independent-samples t-test because our data did not satisfy the assumption of homogeneity of variance required by the latter. The Welch t-test is robust to heterogeneity of variance, and uses the Welch-Satterthwaite equation to adjust the degrees of freedom of the test accordingly. All t-tests were carried out at an alpha level of α = .05. Lastly, all effect sizes reported for the t-tests are values of Cohen’s d.

Before reporting the results of our t-tests, it is worth noting that the order of the factors from most endorsed to least endorsed in our sample was conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness, extraversion, and openness. Furthermore, using a series of five one-sample t-tests, we determined that our participants endorsed all five factors at a significantly higher rate than the neutral point (i.e., neither agree nor disagree, which has a numeric value of 4 on the TIPI; p < .001 for all).

We turn next to comparing how personality distributions in the OWS sample compare to extant norms (Table

2, Figure 1). Here we find only partial support for the hypotheses we develop above. We find the OWS sample

Table 2. Comparing OWS sample to norm sample on big five measures.

M (SE)

N

Extraversion

13,800

264

Openness

13,800

264

Agreeableness

13,800

264

Conscientiousness

13,800

264

Big Five Trait	CCES	OWS
	M (SE)		N	t (df)	Cohen’s d
Emotional Stability	5.08 (.01)					13,800	5.42 (.08)					264	−3.86 (270.92)***	−.24
4.25 (.01)	4.89 (.10)	−6.31 (271.39)***	−.39
5.26 (.01)	4.62 (.07)	8.93 (272.94)***	.55
5.34 (.01)	5.02 (.08)	3.65 (271.82)***	.23
5.72 (.01)	5.56 (.08)	1.91 (267.84)	.12

Note: Negative t-values indicate a larger mean value for the OWS sample than the norm sample. ***signified statistical significance at the p < .001 level, two-tailed.

Figure 1. Comparison of CCES norms with OWS sample.

to be higher on emotional stability (t(270.92) = −3.86, p < .001, d = −.24) and extraversion (t(271.39) = −6.31, p < .001, d = −.39) compared to the norm sample; however, we find the OWS sample scored lower on openness (t(272.94) = 8.93, p < .001, d = .55) and agreeableness (t(271.82) = 3.65, p < .001, d = .23) compared to the norm sample. The difference with respect to conscientiousness between the OWS sample and the norm sample was not statistically significant (t(267.84) = 1.91, ns, d = .12).

Discussion and Conclusion

The main goal of this paper is to present evidence about the distributions of Big Five personality traits for the OWS protesters. We also conduct a series of empirical tests to assess a series of hypotheses about how we expect these distributions to differ from the typical distribution of Big Five traits in the population.

Overall, we find support for most of our hypotheses. Individuals participating in OWS protests did indeed score significantly higher on extraversion and emotional stability, lower on agreeableness, and similarly on conscientiousness compared to the norm sample. In the one case where our results were not consistent with our expectations, we found lower levels of openness than in the norm sample.

One possible explanation for the inconsistent results with respect to openness is the presence of mitigating factors. It has been argued (Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson, & Anderson, 2010) that mitigating factors often mediate the strength of the correlations. These mitigating factors, which could include what Opp & Brandstätter (2010) call incentives, can range from personal in nature (such as having a large stake in the outcome of a political contest or decision) to social (such as wanting to be perceived a certain way by others) to moral/ethical (such as having strong feelings about a candidate’s beliefs or the repercussions of an upcoming legislative vote). Indeed, Opp & Brandstätter (2010) found that incentives explained a moderate portion of variance in protesting behavior in their samples, so when incentives go unmeasured it could be difficult to predict with much precision what the relationship between different personality factors and protesting behavior might be. It was possible that there were mitigating factors relating to personality in our OWS sample that would explain our findings. Additionally, Gallego & Oberski (2012) found that ability to answer knowledge questions concerning the purpose of the protest, amount of discussions protestors had had with their family members about the issues under protest, and self-efficacy all had a mediating effect on the relationship between openness and engaging in protest behaviors. Such mitigating or mediating factors might explain our findings with respect to openness. Reference Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson, & Anderson (2010)’s finding that individuals engaged in protest behaviors score higher on openness is actually rather surprising, given that protesters usually have very strongly-held opinions regardless of their political or economic orientations. Perhaps the current study captured a truer picture of the openness factor, whereas Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson, & Anderson (2010) had findings confounded by social desirability bias, whereby protesters depicted themselves as open to new ideas to counteract the stereotypical image of protesters as radical in their opinions. Further research should be conducted to investigate these relationships.

Mondak also discusses the role of self-efficacy in determining whether individuals who score high on conscientiousness engage in protest behaviors (Mondak, 2010). The mediating role of self-efficacy is analogous to the mediating role of other possible incentives or mitigating factors, examples of which are given above. Namely, if individuals think that engaging in protests has the possibility of effecting change, we say that they have high levels of self-efficacy. Then, an individual who scores high on self-efficacy and conscientiousness is more likely to engage in political protests, while an individual who scores low on self-efficacy and high on conscientiousness is less likely to engage in political protest. After all, if one thinks one does not have the power to effect change, why would one bother spending all the effort to protest? This mediating effect of self-efficacy on conscientiousness acts as a neutralizer on the relationship of conscientiousness with protest activities, and that is why we see our hypothesized null effect for this factor.

In conclusion, we present research on a novel sample of Occupy Wall Street protesters in the New York City area. To our knowledge, the personality dimensions of this group of individuals have never before been studied. We find OWS protesters to be more emotionally stable and extraverted than what is typical for the population at large, but less open and agreeable. We find no differences in levels of conscientiousness. Future research may leverage data about respondents’ motivations for participating in protests and conduct mediation analyses to link personality factors with incentives.

References

Abramowitz, S. I. (1973). The Comparative Competence-Adjustment of Student Left Social-Political Activists. Journal of Personality, 41, 244-260.

Asher, H. (2004). Polling and the Public (6th ed.). Washington DC: CQ Press.

Brandstätter, H., & Opp, K.-D. (2014). Personality Traits (“Big Five”) and the Propensity to Political Protest: Alternative Models. Political Psychology, 35, 515-537.

Curtin, N., Stewart, A. J., & Duncan, L. E. (2010). What Makes the Political Personal? Openness, Personal Political Salience, and Activism. Journal of Personality, 78, 943-968.

Gallego, A., & Oberski, D. (2012). Personality and Political Participation: The Mediation Hypothesis. Political Behavior, 34, 425-451.

Gerber, A. S., Huber, G. A., Doherty, D., & Dowling, C. M. (2011). The Big Five Personality Traits in the Political Arena. Annual Review of Political Science, 14, 265-287.

Gerber, A. S., Huber, G. A., Doherty, D., Dowling, C. M., & Ha, S. E. (2010). Personality and Political Attitudes: Relationships across Issue Domains and Political Contexts. American Political Science Review, 104, 111-133.

Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, Jr., W. B. (2003). A Very Brief Measure of the Big-Five Personality Domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504-528.

Heaney, M., & Fabio, R. (2007). Partisans, Nonpartisans, and the Antiwar Movement in the United States. American Politics Research, 35, 431-464.

McClosky, H. (1958). Conservatism and Personality. American Political Science Review, 52, 27-45.

Mishel, L., & Bivens, J. (2011). Occupy Wall Streeters Are Right about Skewed Economic Rewards in the United States

(Briefing Paper #331). The Economic Policy Institute Website.

Occupy Wall Streeters are right about skewed economic rewards in the United States

Mondak, J. J. (2010). Personality and the Foundations of Political Behavior. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Mondak, J. J., & Halperin, K. D. (2008). A Framework for the Study of Personality and Political Behavior. British Journal of Political Science, 38, 335-362.

Mondak, J. J., Hibbing, M. V., Canache, D., Seligson, M. A., & Anderson, M. R. (2010). Personality and Civic Engagement: An Integrative Framework for the Study of Trait Effects on Political Behavior. American Political Science Review, 104, 85-110.

Opp, K.-D., & Brandstätter, H. (2010). Political Protest and Personality Traits: A Neglected Link. Mobilization: An International Journal, 15, 323-346.

Steinbrecher, M., & Schön, H. (2012). Personality and Political Participation against the Background of the German Federal Election 2009. Journal of Political Psychology, 12, 30-51.

Vecchione, M., & Caprara, G. (2009). Personality Determinants of Political Participation: The Contribution of Traits and Self-Efficacy Beliefs. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 487-492.

Welch, B. L. (1947). The Generalization of Student’s Problem when Several Different Population Variances Are Involved. Biometrika, 34, 28-35.

1958

1958

 

 

Section I: Summery and Analysis

In accordance with this study of “Initial Data Characterizing the Progression from

Obsession and Compulsions to Full-Blown Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,” overseen by

Meredith E. According to Coles, Ashley S. Hart, and Casey A. Schofield (2012), preceding

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) clinical diagnosis, a person typically experiences years

of obsessive and compulsive tendencies referred to as the “OC symptom phase.” (p. #). During

the OC symptom phase which commonly occurs around the age of twelve, the prevalence and

manifestation of prodromes known as “risk markers” (p. #) begin to emerge. The goal of this

study was to provide data that could aid in interventions during the symptomatic stage, to reduce

the severity of distress before it reaches clinical inception.

Participants included 18 Caucasian adults classified under the Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) as exhibiting an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

(Coles, 2012). The subjects were asked to review their past course of events… and report their

OC symptoms. The participants scores were in the standard deviation range of 19.70 to 22.26 on

the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory (OCI) self-report (Coles, 2012). The severity of their

symptoms were comparative with other people diagnosed with OCD. Among the OC symptoms

reported by the sample group were the following: obsessing (50%), perfectionism and

generalized anxiety (46.7%), checking and neutralizing (33.3%), washing, ordering, and

hoarding (22.2%), (Coles, 2012). Other possible risk markers reported included anxiety,

depression, and cognitive dissonance in the form of an increased need of certainty and extra

attention to thoughts.

Semi-structured interviews were administered by higher-level graduate students

alongside Meredith E. Coles (Coles, 2012). The team assessed the 51 symptoms or “risk

Comment [DLC1]: Please refer to  the outline,  
instructions and grading rubric for this assignment 
that I provided in the syllabus.  
 
Did this student authour utilize APA‐ 
formatted citations and references? Yes. You’ll 
notice that I went ahead and corrected this section 
that the student wrote so that it would more closely 
adhere to APA‐formatting. What she started with 
was ‘good’, our combined goal, though, is to help 
you improve your writing. (As announced in class, 
students’ use of APA‐formatting need not be 
perfect. It must be present, though. You can’t write 
a ‘good’ summary and critique paper (about an 
empirical journal article) that doesn’t contain 
citations and references.  
 
Did s/he summarize the article (i.e., state the 
research’s purpose, question, method, and major 
findings)? Yes. 
 
Did s/he then summarize a strength or weakness of 
the article? Yes. 
 
(Please keep in mind that your textbook 
contains some fairly‐good examples of APA‐ 
formatted citations and references. Another great 
resource is the section of the Purdue OWL website 
that describes APA formatting. I also am on hand 
and happy to help if you have questions.) 

Comment [DLC2]: Remember, direct quotes 
should be cited appropriately. 

Formatted: Highlight

Formatted: Highlight

Formatted: Highlight

 
 

markers” associated with onset Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and rated the level ranging from

“‘mild’ (1) to ‘moderate’ (2) to ‘severe’ (3)” (Coles, 2012). A list was compiled of confounding

variables and evaluated as possible transition markers. The participants were asked to detail their

experience of how their symptoms began, whether or not it was a ‘sudden’ or ‘gradual’ process,

and when it began to interfere with their daily lives and manifest into anxiety. When asked what

they believed was most detrimental in the progression of their OCD they named stress, life

changes, and the drive to make everything perfect.

The results were as theorized by the researchers. All of the sample participants reported

exhibiting OC symptoms for a year prior and 88.9 percent reported 7 years on average before

their symptoms began to cause distress. Fifty percent reported exhibiting symptoms for 5 or

more years, and 33.3 percent said they had exhibited symptoms for ten years or longer.

While the strengths of this study are detailed above the weaknesses are as follows: though

the results of this study were comparative with similar prior studies, this study’s sample group

was comprised of an extremely small portion of OCD suffers. There was no randomization or

generality. Although the sample group consisted of an equivalent number of men and women,

they were all of the same ethnicity. There is no information given regarding their age, or

socioeconomic status which would have been beneficial in reviewing the data. Also, the method

of research was based solely on recollection and self-reports. A study based solely on self-reports

is not enough to substantiate a theory, because people’s responses can be falsified.

Section II: Concept from Assigned Reading

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a personality disorder characterized by intrusive or

invasive thoughts that cause anxiety, which is relieved by performing certain actions that a

person feels compelled to do (Larsen, 2010). As stated above in comparison with the findings of

Formatted: Highlight
Formatted: Highlight
Formatted: Highlight

Comment [DLC3]: Please refer to  the outline 
and instructions for this assignment that I provided 
in the syllabus. Does this section include what 
should be included here?   

Comment [DLC4]: Notice how the student cited 
some concept(s) that we read and discussed in class. 
Then, notice how s/he related that to the article 
that is summarized and critiqued in the first section 
of this current paper. 

 
 

the study performed by Coles, Hart, and Schofield, obsessive compulsive behavioral traits can

oftentimes be traced back to childhood. A person can experience obsessions and compulsions

without being classified as having the disorder, it is only when the person becomes fixated that it

becomes abnormal and alters their ability to perform other life functions properly. For instance,

most people who come into contact with something that is ‘contaminated’ wash their hands

afterwards. However, for a person with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, washing their hands

once may not be enough. They will wash, and re-wash their hands many times before they ‘feel’

like their hands are sufficiently clean, even if it were to cause them to miss an important

appointment or arrive late to work. People with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder often

irrationally feel that if they do not perform certain tasks, they or someone they know will suffer

negative repercussions (Larsen, 2010). This self-aware illogical reasoning is the center of their

executive dysfunction.

Section III: Recent News Story

In a recent news story published by USA Today, Anita Manning reports about an

inspiring young women by the name of Elyse Moni who was diagnosed with an Obsessive

Compulsive Disorder at the age of eight years old. Elyse is obsessed with perfection, which

started to manifest when she began staying up to odd hours of the night obsessing over perfecting

her homework. Elyse’s father is also a sufferer of the disorder; so he detected the symptoms early

on and took her in for a psychological evaluation. Her symptoms subsided after beginning

cognitive behavioral therapy, but still reoccur at times during significant life changes. For

instance, when she began high school she became obsessed with her school work to the point

that she did not feel she had enough time to do anything else, including eat, and had to be

hospitalized. She hid her disorder from her friends until her sophomore year when she decided to

Formatted: Highlight

Comment [DLC5]: Please refer to  the outline 
and instructions for this assignment that I provided 
in the syllabus. Does this section include what 
should be included here?   

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publicize it and become an advocate for OCD awareness. Elyse’s doctor, Swedo, says that early

diagnosis is the key to helping obsessive compulsive children develop better coping strategies

that will carry on into adulthood (Manning 2004). Elyse’s story is relative to the research of

Coles, Hart, and Schofield in their goal of researching the ‘risk markers’ that could help detect

and intervene against OCD early on.

Section IV: Personal Connection

I am familiar with the problems associated with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder because

I know someone who suffers from the disorder. Though she has learned how to manage her

obsessions and compulsions over time, it was problematic and extremely troubling when the

symptoms first emerged in preadolescence. She began to experience excessive fears of

contamination, which contributed to an obsession with washing her hands. When asked once at

the peak of her disorder, how many times a day she washed her hands she replied, “two

hundred.” It was frustrating for her to attempt to explain it to people with no general knowledge

of the disorder, because they simply told her to stop washing her hands so often. Her parents

were unaware of what to do at first, because they had never heard of an Obsessive Compulsive

Disorder. However, they took her to a psychologist who clinically diagnosed her with OCD. She

went to therapy for a few years before finally reclaiming her thoughts and actions.

Comment [DLC6]: Notice how, as per 
instructions, the student relates the popular press 
article to the empirical journal article. 

Comment [DLC7]: Please refer to  the outline 
and instructions for this assignment that I provided 
in the syllabus. Does this section include what 
should be included here?   

Formatted: Highlight

 
 

References

Coles, M., Hart, A., & Schofield, C. (2012). Initial Data Characterizing the Progression from

Obsessions and Compulsions to Full-Blown Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Cognitive

Therapy & Research, 36(6), 685-693.

Larsen, R. J., & Buss, D. M. (2010). Personality Disorders. Personality Psychology: Domains of

Knowledge About Human Nature. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Manning, A. (2004). Early Intervention Helps. USA TODAY. Retrieved from

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-01-15-ocd-usat_x.htm

Comment [DLC8]: Recall the general rule that if 
the paper contains citations, it also should contain a 
reference list.