Anna S. Caruso, who mostly goes by Sofie, is currently a fifth-year PhD candidate in Dr. Goldstein’s lab. She graduated Summa cum Laude from the University of Oklahoma in 2021 with a BA in psychology, a BMA in Opera Vocal Performance and minors in French and Medical Humanities. Anna’s research primarily focuses on how morality influences engagement, evaluations, and emotion across various artistic forms and imaginative contexts, including narratives, theatre, music, and pretense. She employs quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods in her work. Anna’s dissertation is a two-phase mixed methods study examining the influence on narrative modality (i.e., reading, writing, watching, or acting out a narrative) on children (ages 8-10) and adults’ ability to imaginatively engage with a morally-deviant work.
Additionally, Anna is working with Dr. Alison Melley at GMU to develop an open access book for introductory psychology students and instructors following the updated APA Introductory Psychology Initiative guidelines.
Study: Engagement in Moral Narratives and Religiosity
Led by PhD student Sofie Caruso, we conducted and analyzed a study where we had participants write narrative responses to non-moral and morally deviant prompts to examine moral imagination in regards to narratives and if there is a relationship between moral imaginative engagement and religiosity. Moral imagination is defined as imaginatively engaging in moral subjectivism when confronted by a novel moral situation. Its inverse construct imaginative resistance, defined as resistance engaging in a work, negatively correlates to imagining a subjective moral world (Black & Barnes, 2020). We explore the relationship between religiosity and engagement in moral imagination through having 518 participants complete moral and non-moral permissibility measures and create a narrative world for a morally-deviant and non-moral prompt. Results suggest that while religiosity may act as a moderator for non-narrative moral imagination tasks, it may not constrain moral imagination in the more active demand of creating a narrative.
Study: Composer Intent and Character on Musical Enjoyment
Led by PhD student Sofie Caruso, this study examined if knowledge about a composer’s intent when writing a piece or the quality of their character impacted participants enjoyment and engagement of the piece. Participants were randomly assigned to read a paragraph dealing intent and composer character in a 2X2 study design of sexist/neutral intent and sexist/neutral character. Results are being analyzed.
Study: Moral Imaginative Resistance in Preschooler’s Pretend Play
Led by Sofie Caruso, we examined if children ages 4-6 years old display a resistance to engaging in pretend play based on the actions in the pretense were moral or immoral, and if the immoral actions were by the participant or another child. This study was conducted in local parks. Children completed a card sort with 24 moral and immoral play scenarios differing in who the moral agent was (child or other). The participants were then asked to actually go and play one of the scenarios for up to 10 minutes before returning for questions on their play and a questionnaire for moral evaluations across real and pretend situations. All of the data has been collected and is in the process of being transcribed and analyzed.