Personality & Online Peer Support (survey - participants very welcome!)

UP677406

Member
Interested in taking part in a Psychological survey?
My name is Joseph Cassidy, a postgraduate psychology student of at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Under the supervision of Dr. Adrian Needs, I am conducting research into personality beliefs, interpersonal skills and the role of online social support in coping. If you are interested in taking part, we would welcome your contribution!

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Study title: Translating underlying beliefs, interpersonal skills and social support across the internet.

Description: The study examines how beliefs about oneself and others correspond with interpersonal skills – and how social support might contribute. We hope that our findings will shed some light on an under-explored area and provide an important springboard for future research (particularly regarding online support).

Three brief questionnaires have been designed to investigate these concepts. They all use short, numerical scales (e.g. 1-5) to respond to each question. Your participation should take no longer than 20 minutes in total.

If you wish to participate: please follow this link to the survey website, where you will be asked to read an information sheet and complete a short consent form. The surveys will then follow. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions!

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Contact details:
Mr. Joseph Cassidy
E-mail: [email protected]

Dr. Adrian Needs
E-mail: [email protected]

Please feel free to pass this survey on - the more respondents the better. Thank you for your time and attention!
 

UP677406

Member
I wanted to post to thank everyone who has already responded to this survey - I'm eternally grateful for your contributions and will continue to stick around should you have any questions for me.

As we're still some distance short of our target however, I also wanted to let all you lovely people know that you're more than welcome (nay, encouraged!) to pass this survey on to anyone who you think might be suitable.

All the best,

~Joseph.
 

Lilly789

Well-known member
interesting survey. At first I thought the questions were really poor and geared toward one type of personality (without realizing it was a survey for personality disorders), but then noticed the "sets" of questions on the first page, and thought it was relatively well covered. Not bad for a written survey which are pretty bad to begin with.

The results obviously wont be perfect though, due to things like the person having blunted affect and a few other issues that come with personality disorders, which you would be aware of.

Maybe 1/4 - 1/3 of the questions were hard to answer because I honestly didnt know the answer, or how I felt, so i just guessed. I clicked the middle or lower buttons, because the questions assume I DO have a feeling, even if its neutral, when in fact there is no feeling present at all - it doesnt register at all. Maybe an N/A button or "irrelevant" button would have been better?

And I do have a personality disorder btw.
 

UP677406

Member
interesting survey. At first I thought the questions were really poor and geared toward one type of personality (without realizing it was a survey for personality disorders), but then noticed the "sets" of questions on the first page, and thought it was relatively well covered. Not bad for a written survey which are pretty bad to begin with.

The results obviously wont be perfect though, due to things like the person having blunted affect and a few other issues that come with personality disorders, which you would be aware of.

Maybe 1/4 - 1/3 of the questions were hard to answer because I honestly didnt know the answer, or how I felt, so i just guessed. I clicked the middle or lower buttons, because the questions assume I DO have a feeling, even if its neutral, when in fact there is no feeling present at all - it doesnt register at all. Maybe an N/A button or "irrelevant" button would have been better?

And I do have a personality disorder btw.
Hello there - thank you for taking the survey! I'm sorry there's been such a delay for my reply.

I'm glad you warmed up to the questionnaire. It is, in fact, a collation of three already "validated" (I use that term with some caution) self-report measures.

I'm certainly anticipating imperfect results and in that sense, it is good that this research is being considered exploratory. But thank you for the heads up, it is much appreciated.

I will also take your suggestions about a 'N/A' option into account. I can quite understand that the questions make certain assumptions about emotions that might simply be absent or neutral in that context. I do think checking the middle answer was the best way to go.

Again, many thanks! Best,

Joseph.
 

Feathers

Well-known member
Okay, I did it too - I've been on the forums a long time but don't come here so often anymore, so I didn't know what to say in the 'how often do you go there' question - wish other options for answering were possible, not just numeric. (I put in a number but it's not really accurate) I used to come here very often, then for a period not, now again...

Also wasn't comfortable putting my own or other people's initials in the questionnaire - what is the purpose of that? And if someone would put an online person without knowing their initials? (I assumed you meant only RL people)

Otherwise, interesting and insightful questionnaire!
 

UP677406

Member
Okay, I did it too - I've been on the forums a long time but don't come here so often anymore, so I didn't know what to say in the 'how often do you go there' question - wish other options for answering were possible, not just numeric. (I put in a number but it's not really accurate) I used to come here very often, then for a period not, now again...

Also wasn't comfortable putting my own or other people's initials in the questionnaire - what is the purpose of that? And if someone would put an online person without knowing their initials? (I assumed you meant only RL people)

Otherwise, interesting and insightful questionnaire!
Thank you very much for your contribution! I really am grateful.

First off, I apologize for the limited options available. This particular part of the questionnaire was down to me and I'll be sure to take your feedback on board. The numeric aspect was to keep it consistent with the majority of the other questions and for ease of analysis. However, I can quite see how this might be restrictive.

Putting someone's initials down was originally used in this particular questionnaire (Social Support Questionnaire - Short Form; Sarason et al., 1983) as a means of identifying the people to whom the respondent is referring. It doesn't quite translate to this particular study, as we have no way of identifying anyone (respondents or those whose initials are down). Tampering with the pre-established questionnaires is bad form when you're still a student! But I suspect that such an exercise forces the respondent to think more carefully about their support network. Mind you, that's purely conjecture.

Finally, thank you for all your comments (especially the complimentary ones).

All the best,

Joseph.
 

UP677406

Member
Shamelessly posting to keep this study in-the-loop, as we are still plenty short of our participant target. As always, I'll be ready and waiting for any questions you might have and can only reiterate my gratitude to those who have already completed the survey.

All the best,

Joseph.
 

UP677406

Member
Hello all,

This is likely to be the final 'bump' for this topic, as in 2 weeks' time I will have to close the survey and start analysing the results. An enormous thank you to everyone who has contributed thus far and also to anyone who does so within the next fortnight.

Please, if you do think you could contribute to this study, don't hesitate - we'd welcome your input.

I will be around to answer questions, discuss thoughts etc., but as I am on holiday for the next 10 days, my replies might be a little delayed.

All the best,

Joseph.
 

UP677406

Member
Hello all,

I'm doing a last-minute push for participants, as we've had a bit of an issue with SurveyMonkey (which has left us with fewer respondents' data than we thought we'd have). We are planning to close the survey next week, so if there are some people out there who can manage to fill it out before then, I couldn't describe how grateful we would be.

Once again, if you've any questions, queries, concerns or just want to chat about the topic, feel free to post/PM.

Thank you, everyone. You've been super and I really appreciate your support. Best,

Joseph.
 
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