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Director
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Shaughnessy, Krystelle Ph.D., C. Psych.
Associate Professor, Clinical Psychology Program
Biography: As Director and founder of the INSITE lab, Dr. Shaughnessy (she/her/they) is involved in all of the lab projects. She started her program of research focused on people’s use of technology for sexual activities in collaboration with Sandra Byers, Ph.D. She expanded her research to examine how people high in social anxiety use technology for social activities during a post-doctoral fellowship with David Moscovitch, Ph.D. Currently, she is focused on theoretically-driven cybersexuality research, and developing reliable, valid, and inclusive research methods. Dr. Shaughnessy occasionally pursues other research related to her broad interests in human sexuality, cognitive-behavioural theory, and evidence-based clinical psychology practice. For information about her teaching and other university activities, please visit her uOttawa profile page.
Graduate students
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Marilyn Ashley B.Sc. (Hons)
Graduate Student, Experimental Psychology ProgramB.Sc. (Hons) Carleton University, 2017Work E-mail: mashl091@uOttawa.ca
Biography: Marilyn (she/her/they/them) is an Experimental Psychology graduate student under the supervision of Dr. Shaughnessy. Her master’s level research was focused on the effects of survey experience on inefficient effort responding to online surveys. She also is assisting with projects related to technology-mediated sexual interactions, comfort with sexual communication, and sexual minority people’s sexual scripts. Marilyn’s SSHRC funded doctoral research focuses on the congruence of lesbian women’s sexual self-concepts in online and offline contexts. Marilyn’s research interests include the integration of technology within sexuality and gender frameworks and the conception and execution of best practice research methods in psychology.
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Justine Braham B.A. (Hons)
Biography: Justine (she/her) is a second-year Clinical Psychology graduate student under the supervision of Dr. Shaughnessy. She has been a member of the lab since May 2017, participating in a variety of sexuality research activities and general research administration. She currently is involved in the technology-mediated sexual interaction measure development project, a sex and anxiety scoping review, and a qualitative online rejection study. Justine’s SSHRC funded dissertation focuses on aggressive responses to online romantic and sexual rejection. Justine's research interests include sexuality, gender differences and feminist issues, sexual orientations, and technology-mediated sexual behaviours.
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Erin Leigh Courtice B.Sc. (Hons)
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Pari-Gole Noorishad
B.A. (Hons), University of OttawaWork E-mail: pnoor033@uOttawa.ca
Biography: Pari-Gole (she/her) is a Clinical Psychology graduate student under the supervision of Dr. Shaughnessy. She joined the INSITE lab as a volunteer research assistant in September 2017. Currently, she is involved in research on technology-mediated sexual interactions (TMSI), on sexual consent within TMSI, and on technology use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her research interests include human sexuality, TMSI, sexual consent, and intersectional research methods.
Undergraduate Students
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Sarah Crookall
Biography: Sarah (she/her) is a fourth-year undergraduate in the Honours Bachelor of Arts Psychology program at the University of Ottawa. Sarah began volunteering with the INSITE lab in early 2019 on a qualitative Undergraduate Research Opportunity Project (UROP) focused on consent and people’s use of Technology Mediated Sexual Interactions (TMSI) in various relationship contexts (with graduate student Erin Courtice). In 2020, Sarah contributed to a manuscript about new technology use among romantic partners during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, Sarah helps to organize the lab knowledge mobilization plan and social media strategy.
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Stéphanie Drouin
Biography: Stéphanie (she/her) is a fourth-year student at the University of Ottawa completing an Honours Bachelor of Science in Psychology. She joined the INSITE Laboratory in spring 2019 as a volunteer research assistant. In 2019-20, Stéphanie completed a UROP project in which she examined the extent to which the Big Five personality characteristics predicted online and offline sexual self-disclosure. Now, Stéphanie is assisting Marilyn Ashley with a literature scoping review related to the sexual scripts, norms, and schemas of sexual minority people. In winter 2021, Stéphanie will do a Directed Research project focused on knowledge mobilization using YouTube.
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Abraar Elmi
Biography: Abraar (she/her) is a fourth-year student completing her Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology at the University of Ottawa. She is completing her honours thesis in the INSITE laboratory. She began working with the lab in May 2020. Currently Abraar is involved in research involving technology-mediated sexual interactions (TMSI), gender, and sexuality.
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Yessenia Escobar
Biography: Yessenia (she/her) is a second-year student at the University of Ottawa completing an Honors Bachelor of Social Science specialised in Criminology. Yessenia began volunteering with the INSITE lab as an administrative assistant in the fall of 2020.
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Léa Gakima
Biography: Léa (she/her) is a 4th year student at the University of Ottawa. She joined the INSITE Laboratory in September 2020 to write her Honours’ Thesis under the supervision of Dr. Shaughnessy. Currently, Léa is working on research about knowledge dissemination on social media, specifically Instagram and YouTube.
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Alexandra Liepmann
Biography: Alexandra (she/her) is a fourth-year student at the University of Ottawa completing an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. She joined the INSITE Laboratory in January 2020 as a volunteer research assistant. Currently, Alexandra is completing her honours thesis under the supervision of Dr. Krystelle Shaughnessy. Alexandra is conducting a fine-grained sentiment and content analysis on the #MeToo movement.
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Sara Moazami
Biography: Sara (she/her) is a fourth-year student at the University of Ottawa completing an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Criminology. Sara joined the INSITE lab in October 2018 as a UROP student, during which she examined a revised measure of sexual communication between sexual partners. Sara is now a volunteer research assistant at the INSITE lab and is involved in research related to sexual communication.
Research Assistants
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Claudelle Abdo
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Konrad Czechowski
Doctoral Student, Clinical PsychologM.A. Experimental Psychology, University of Ottawa, 2018B.A. (Hons), University of Ottawa, 2014Biography: Konrad (he) is a graduate student collaborator with the INSITE lab. Konrad's thesis supervisor is Dr. John Sylvestre with whom he does research primarily in the area of housing and homelessness and is working on a thesis on sexual and romantic relationships among people who are homeless. Konrad's involvement with the INSITE lab started with a multi-study project on non-consensual condom removal, a project that is still ongoing and in its second study. Konrad has contributed to a number of projects in collaboration with other students in the lab, and with Dr. Shaughnessy including one about disproportionate responses to romantic and sexual rejection. Konrad's latest project with Dr. Shaughnessy for which we are currently recruiting participants is on the ethical use of data provided by people who belong to the trans community – a mixed-methods project that follows a participatory research design.
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Morgan Joseph
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Caitlyn Kay
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Biography: Erin (she/her) is a volunteer research assistant at the INSITE Laboratory. She has a B.A. in Psychology (University of Ottawa) and an M.Sc. in Experimental Psychology (Trent University). Erin has been a volunteer at the INSITE lab since May 2020. Erin assists with various research projects and social media activities in the lab. Currently, she is involved in research on sex scripts, non-consensual condom removal, and technology use with romantic and sexual partners.
Erin Laverty
M.Sc., Trent University, 2017B.A. (Hons), University of Ottawa, 2015
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Lucas Walters
Alumni
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Asrat, Yodit
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Borisevich, Severina B.A.
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Clark, Kelsey
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Dewalt, Sarah
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Flegar, Alaina
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Khouani, Zaki
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Levaque, Enya B.A. (Hons)
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Tutino, Jessica
Online and Mobile Social Science Research Methods
Cyberpsychology
Cyberpsychology is an emerging field that examines the impact of mobile, new, and emerging technologies on human behaviour. Cyberpsychologists are interested in human interactions with technologies and the application of psychological principles to these interactions. Our lab is consistently working towards applying and extending cyberpsychology theories, concepts, and hypotheses to all the work we do.
Social media
Social media are popular, ever-evolving Internet-based applications that people use to create content, exchange content, share content, and connect or interact with others. People who use social media produce large amounts of data on these services that could be beneficial for researchers studying a wide range of individual and social phenomenon. However, sound research methods for using social media as a passive research tool are only beginning to emerge.
Stresscapes
Dr. Shaughnessy collaborated with Drs. Colin Robertson and Ketan Shankardass from Wilfrid Laurier University, Rob Feick from the University of Waterloo, and Martin Sykora and Suzanne Elayan from Loughborough University (UK) to develop Stresscapes – an ontology for Twitter that captures people’s level of stress experienced or described in Tweets. While doing so, we also proposed a Unified Ecological Framework to account for the many ways people’s physical and digital worlds connect to impact their well-being.
We are using the new method to improve knowledge on how people experience and express emotions and stress, and the complex relationships between these experiences and their social context, geographical environments, and wellbeing/health. For example, we are examining community health and resilience and the emotional content related to the #MeToo Movement. The #MeToo movement became popular in 2017 and involved people across the world sharing their experiences of sexual violence. The movement began on Twitter and then moved to other online platforms.
Status: Manuscripts published; Manuscript preparation; Data analyses.
Funding: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2014-18); Saint Michael's Angel’s Den (2018-2020).
We continue to seek partners interested in new applications for this tool or to collaborate on data-triangulation (i.e., connecting with other data sources) projects. For a representation of our work with this research method, please see:
Social Tech and Physical Distance Study (STPD)
The Social Tech and Physical Distance Study (STPD) is an online survey study to examine adults' use of technologies for social connections during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We have collected data at three different time points, and we will use the data for multiple manuscripts/sub-studies. We will complete the diffusion of findings on STPD in Winter 2021. Additionally, we have been using participants' answers to share tips, tricks, and ideas on how to use technology during COVID-19 on our social media (Twitter: @uoINSITE and Instagram: @uoinsite).
Status: Manuscripts in preparation; Conference presentations presented and to be presented.
Ghosting
Ghosting is a relationship dissolution or breakup strategy which involves cutting off all contact with a former partner and by ignoring their attempts to reach out, without providing an explanation. Although ghosting is a term that is frequently used in pop culture, few researchers have empirically assessed ghosting. Two members of the lab supervised by Dr. Shaughnessy, Caitlyn and Erin, conducted a study to examine the extent to which people’s beliefs about the moral acceptability of ghosting varied depending on the contexts of the relationship in which ghosting occurred, and the individual levels of interpersonal anxiety.
Status: Manuscripts in preparation; Conference presentations completed.
Cybersexuality
Cybersexuality is the intersection between cyberpsychology and sexuality. It is a broad term to refer to theory and research from varying domains of inquiry on human sexuality that includes the use of technologies, or content, media, and communication via technologies. Cybersexuality research can be about how people use technology for sexual purposes alone or with others, and what the outcomes of these are. It can also be about about how technologies and media influence and are influenced by sexuality phenomenon such as sexual culture, beliefs, experiences, consent, development, atypical or illegal sexual behaviours, etc. E-health and mobile-health related to sexuality, technology tools for education or sexual pleasure, and technology and sexual attractions all fit within cybersexuality.
In the INSITE lab, we focus primarily on technology-mediated sexual behaviours and their role in people’s lives. We aim to assume a neutral stance in our approach to understanding these.
Technology-Mediated Sexual Interactions (TMSI)
Technology-Mediated Sexual Interactions (TMSI) is a term we coined in the lab (Courtice & Shaughnessy, 2017). It refers to any interaction with specified other person(s), that occurs via communication technology, and includes exchanging, sending, or receiving self-created, sexually explicit content. TMSI integrates sexting (i.e., sending, receiving and/or exchanging photos, videos, auditory messages, text messages through a cellular phone) and cybersex (i.e., sending, receiving and/or exchanging photos, videos, auditory messages, text messages through Internet-based platforms) with phone sex, virtual sex, avatar sex, and haptic sex. All these technology-based activities incorporate the same behaviour: exchanging self-created, sexually explicit content through communication technology.
We are developing a comprehensive measure that includes all forms of TMSI for research use. We have completed a literature review, cognitive interviews, pilot survey, and expert survey for the English measure. We are collecting psychometric data and translating the measure to French.
Status: Data collection; Translation.
Funding: University of Ottawa Seed Funding (2017-18), Bridge Funding (2020-21).
Graduate students in the lab are leading studies on approach-avoidance motivations and TMSI, and non-consensual TMSI.
Online Sexual Activity
Online sexual activity (OSA) refers to any behavior or activity that occurs via the Internet and involves sexual content or stimuli. Our published and ongoing research on this topic is focused on improving understanding of non-problematic, or recreational use, of OSAs. We are developing reliable and valid measures to better study these types of online activities and using these measures to examine people’s attitudes, experiences, and outcomes of OSAs.
In previous research, Dr. Shaughnessy and her colleagues have demonstrated that OSAs include separate categories of non-arousal (e.g., seeking sexual information online), solitary-arousal (e.g., viewing erotica or pornography online), and partnered-arousal (e.g., sending sexually explicit messages or pictures to another person using email) activities. In addition, she found that students’ definitions of cybersex, and people’s reported cybersex experiences represent a subtype of partnered-arousal OSAs that occur in real-time, and involve sharing detailed descriptions of sexual activities, fantasies, or desires whether or not self-stimulation accompanies the activity. Our published and ongoing research suggests that many people engage in these activities but do so relatively infrequently, and that most people who participate in partnered-arousal activities – including cybersex – do so with a primary committed partner.
For additional information, please see our publications.
Sex and Anxiety Research Group
Dr. Shaughnessy is a founding faculty member of The Sex and Anxiety Research Group (SAX-RG). The SAX-RG is currently supported by the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). SAX-RG research focuses on the relationship between anxiety and sexual response, including the role of social anxiety in technology-mediated sexual interactions (TMSI; sexting, phone sex, or cybersex). You can learn more about the SAX-RG by clicking here: https://socialciences.uottawa.ca/sex-anxiety-research-group/.
As part of the SAX-RG, Dr. Shaughnessy (PI) and many of our members are actively working on a scoping review to explore how people higher in social anxiety may use new and emerging technologies for sexual interactions or communications. We will follow this review with an exploratory survey focused on the extent to which TMSI is helpful or harmful for people high in social anxiety.
Status: Scoping review in progress, pre-registered on osf.io.
Funding: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Development Grant (2019-2023); Faculty of Social Sciences Research Groups (2018-2021).
Inclusive Research Methods
We strive to continuously inform ourselves about inclusive research methods and how to apply them. As a lab active in sexuality research, we have developed questions that allow us to capture a wider range of sexual diversity (e.g., gender, sex, sexual orientation). We have also adapted sexuality scales to strip them of their heteronormative structure. Other variables we are trying to measure more respectfully and accurately involve visible minority status (e.g., racial identity) and invisible minority status (e.g., sexual identity).
