Bridgewater State University

About: Bridgewater State University is a education organization based out in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 625 authors who have published 1223 publications receiving 21820 citations. The organization is also known as: BSU & Bridgewater State.

Measuring Simultaneous Emotions: Existing Problems and a New Way Forward

Abstract: Studies on discrete emotions typically work to evoke one emotion at a time. Yet many political phenomena cause multiple emotions. Threats, for example, cause, anger, and fear, have diametrically opposing behavioral consequences. As a result, the effect of experimental treatments can be masked by the countervailing influence of emotions with similar affect. This issue is exacerbated by existing measures of negative emotions, such as the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). We show that the PANAS is contaminated by systematic measurement error, as negative affect produced by one emotion influences responses on the other. To overcome this, we develop an alternative version of the PANAS that allows respondents to select which emotions they are feeling, then rate the severity. This technique accurately captures respondent’s emotional reactions, reducing measurement error and thus decreasing the correlation between fear and anger. The tactics we developed have broad relevance for experimental researchers analyzing emotional responses to politics.

Study of Errors in Strong Gravitational Lensing

Abstract: We examine the accuracy of strong gravitational lensing determinations of the mass of galaxy clusters by comparing the conventional approach with the numerical integration of the fully relativistic null geodesic equations in the case of weak gravitational perturbations on Robertson-Walker metrics. In particular, we study spherically symmetric, three-dimensional singular isothermal sphere models and the three-dimensional matter distribution of Navarro and coworkers which are both commonly used in gravitational lensing studies. In both cases we study two different methods for mass-density truncation along the line of sight: hard truncation and conventional (no truncation). We find that the relative error introduced in the total mass by the thin-lens approximation alone is less than 0.3% in the singular isothermal sphere model and less than 2% in the model of Navarro and coworkers. The removal of hard truncation introduces an additional error of the same order of magnitude in the best case and up to an order of magnitude larger in the worst case studied. Our results ensure that the future generation of precision cosmology experiments based on lensing studies will not require the removal of the thin-lens assumption, but they may require a careful handling of truncation.

Willingness to Interact with an Old Person

Abstract: A 3 x 2 factorial design tested the effects of the age and socioeconomic status of a stimulus-person on the willingness of college students to associate with him at a "formal lecture" and at an "informal discussion and coffee hour." For the more intimate coffee hour situation, willingness to associate with a high socioeconomic status person did not differ by age, whereas willingness to associate with a low socioeconomic status person was significantly greater when he was either young or middle-aged than when he was old. These results indicate that old age is a stigma that wealth, in certain circumstances, can overcome.