Research

Using this tool, organizations can prioritize finding the right candidates to maintain healthy work culture

It feels like narcissism is everywhere these days: politics, movies and TV, sports, social media. You might even see signs of it at work, where it can be particularly detrimental. Is it possible to keep a workplace free of destructive, manipulative egotists? 

More and more organizations have come to San Francisco State University’s experts in organizational psychology asking for help doing just that. In response, University researchers developed a tool for job interviews to assess narcissistic grandiosity among potential job candidates. San Francisco State Psychology Professors Kevin Eschleman and Chris Wright and four student researchers led the project, published in the Journal of Personality Assessment.

“We focused on narcissism because it’s one of the most commonly talked about characteristics of people. Really, it represents a lot of things that can go bad in terms of a team,” Eschleman said. “But it’s a characteristic that is very attractive in the short-term. [Narcissists] often have tendencies to be very goal-oriented and are often very successful. There’s a lure to somebody who is high in narcissism.” 

The tool developed by the SF State researchers — the Narcissism Interview Scale for Employment (NISE) — is a set of behavioral and situational questions that can be incorporated into a job interview. One question asks respondents to describe their approach to leading a team. Another asks how candidates would procced if they disagree with a plan that the rest of their team likes — and the project requires unanimous consent to move forward. Interviewers are trained to rate candidate responses, providing a more scientific and consistent way to evaluate a candidate’s propensity for narcissistic grandiosity. 

The project started four years ago when Eschleman noticed an uptick in organizations asking about effective teams, candidate selection and how to avoid “bad apples.” It’s easy for organizations to be enticed by how a candidate’s skills appear on paper, but failing to properly consider personality might derail team-oriented environments, Eschleman notes. Employees with narcissistic grandiosity tend to have inflated views of self and make self-focused and short term-focused decisions instead of considering long-term organizational needs. They may also abuse and try to protect their sense of power and control, he adds.

“This isn’t a categorical diagnosis,” Eschleman clarified, noting that everyone probably falls somewhere on the continuum of narcissism. “What we’re looking at are people’s consistencies over time. It’s how they view themselves or how others view them consistently over time. Do they engage in these actions consistently?”

The authors acknowledge that this assessment is not a perfect science. There are many other factors in building a successful team and healthy work environment. But they hope their tool will increase the odds for success.

While the researchers have been studying these topics for years, they wanted to make sure their tool was easy to use and could be adapted by different work environments. It is why they focused on job interviews, something accepted and considered appropriate by both organizations and applicants in the hiring process.

Sharon Pidakala (M.S., ’22), one of the study authors, is now a People & Development Manager at Lawyers On Demand in Singapore. Her work involves talent acquisition, culture, development, organizational policies and employee engagement. 

“I’ve been grateful to put my research into daily use. It’s really important to make sure that these questions are not outrightly direct because you don’t want it to look like you’re asking someone, ‘Are you a narcissist?’” explained Pidakala, whose SFSU thesis focused on developing the NISE tool. “These questions are raised in a way to make it look favorable for the candidate.”

Pidakala came to SF State specifically to get this type of training. With an undergraduate background in psychology, she sought specialized training in organizational psychology to further refine and expand her expertise in the field.

"Attending SF State and studying organizational psychology has been incredibly valuable, equipping me with versatile skills that can be applied globally," she said. 

Learn more about SFSU’s Industrial/Organizational Psychology program.

Two new papers could help improve understanding of octopus arm function, development, evolution and more

Octopuses are fascinating. Their eight arms gracefully whip through water and can accomplish extraordinary tasks like using tools and opening jars. While humans have one spinal cord attached to their brain, in octopuses, it’s almost like each arm has its own spinal cord (minus the actual spine) and nervous system. These arms can even initiate a response without consulting the brain. 

How octopus arms can do all this at a cellular level has largely remained a neuroscience mystery — one that’s proved difficult to study because of technological limitations and the expense of research. But now San Francisco State University researchers are starting to provide answers. 

Trying to overcome those previous limitations, the San Francisco State researchers created three-dimensional molecular and anatomical maps of the inner neuronal circuitry of octopus arms. Their recent findings were published in two scientific papers in the journal Current Biology.

“Having [these two papers] converging at the same time means the amount we can learn from any single experiment is just astronomically higher,” SF State Biology Associate Department Chair and Assistant Professor Robyn Crook said of her lab’s research. “I would say these papers are really facilitating discovery in new ways.” 

This research was supported by an Allen Distinguished Investigator Award, a Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group advised grant of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Crook’s Allen Distinguished Investigator (ADI) grant was the first recipient in the California State University (CSU) system since the grant’s inception in 2010. 

A traditional two-dimensional look at the octopus arm is comparable to taking a thin slice out of the middle of a fruit loaf. It’s difficult to know if distribution of fruits and nuts in that slice is representative of distribution and interactions throughout the loaf. Instead, postdoctoral fellow Gabrielle Winters-Bostwick and graduate student Diana Neacsu took multiple sections along the octopus arm to create 3D reconstructions of cell distribution and gross anatomy, respectively. 

The ADI project and Crook’s mentorship were instrumental for Neacsu, now a Ph.D. student at Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven in Belgium. During her two years in Crook’s lab, Neacsu gained advanced technical skills and networked and collaborated with more senior researchers, and now she has more scientific research papers in the pipeline. 

“Before I met her, I never really understood the concept of mentorship,” Neacsu said of Crook. “I kind of just thought [mentors] were teachers that are available during office hours.” 

Neacsu’s and Winters-Bostwick’s papers enabled a myriad of research opportunities both within Crook’s lab and beyond. Other labs have already showed interest in using these tools for cephalopod neuroscience research. 

The SF State team is looking at live tissues and seeing how they respond to chemical and mechanical stimulation, trying to understand neurons firing in real time. With the new 3D maps, they can make realistic predictions about what’s happening inside an octopus arm to create these responses. There are also a lot of evolutionary questions Crook’s lab is eager to answer. 

“Why do you have an animal with this much complexity that doesn’t seem to follow the same rules as our other example — humans — of a very complex nervous system?” Crook asked. “There’s a lot of hypotheses. It might be functional. There might be something fundamentally different in the tasks octopus arms have to do. But it could also be an evolutionary accident.”

Learn more about research in SF State’s Department of Biology. 

With faculty support, a student expands class project into a graduate research project

It’s not often that one gets to throw starfish a birthday party. Some species — like the six-rayed sea star Leptasterias — are notoriously difficult to keep alive in the lab, making even first birthdays a rarity. So when San Francisco State University researcher Berenice Baca achieved the seemingly impossible feat of raising Leptasterias specimens for an entire year, her lab made sure to celebrate.

Happy birthday, dear Leptasterias…

Baca studies the developmental patterns of two species of Leptasterias sea stars (Leptasterias pusilla and Leptasterias aequalis). These species reproduce via brood-fostering, which is akin to a hen sitting on her eggs. While somewhat common among other animals, it’s a rare approach among marine species. In the wild, maternal sea stars protect 50 – 1,500 embryos on their underside until their young stars are ready to be independent. Baca successfully raised these embryos to a juvenile stage in the lab without maternal care (i.e., without brooding). As part of this project, she developed protocols for this process and gleaned unique insight about Leptasterias development.

“As I was starting this project, I realized there’s no information on this, which drove me a little crazy,” Baca said, noting that the knowledge gap fueled her curiosity and determination.

Her first step was to give the sea stars a laboratory home as cold as their native habitat. Baca first raised the stars at 9 to 10 degrees Celsius in a classroom cold room before moving them to a dedicated deli fridge set at 12 to 13 degrees Celsius. Next, she needed to ensure that the stars didn’t starve. This was quite the saga, Baca explains, because the stars kept losing interest in readily available fish food. It turned out Baca’s microscopic juvenile starfish — approximately 0.2 cm in size — required live sea snails, copepods and barnacles they could hunt.

“I ended up getting these microscopic snails that required really fine tweezers to get them out of barnacles. I was doing this at 5 in the morning or very late at night because I have to correlate [my work] with the tides,” she explained.

Comparable studies on Leptasterias failed to grow the early juveniles in the lab and only one known study was able to hatch these stars. Extending Leptasterias’ lifespan in the lab gave Baca the opportunity to document their development as early as eight hours to 31 days, allowing her to capture beautiful images of fertilized eggs and snapshots of intermediate stages. By day 44, her juvenile stars began taking on a familiar six-armed star shape, and by 10 months the stars were 1.3 cm or bigger and started exhibiting hallmark coloration and patterns. Sharing her work at conferences, she was heartened to hear other scientists share excitement for her work and give her words of encouragement.

Baca and the Cohen lab even worked with KQED to feature Leptasterias in a new episode of its science video series “Deep Look.” Scroll to end of story to see the video. 

Growing up alongside her stars

“I’m really thankful for the entire Cohen lab,” Baca said, adding that Cohen’s and her lab mates’ support and encouragement have been instrumental. “I believe without them I wouldn’t have anything.”

Learn more about SF State’s Biology Department.

The campus-wide events highlight students’ contribution to SF State’s research community

With the end of the semester and Commencement approaching, it’s celebration season at San Francisco State University, and many colleges, departments and organizations are honoring students’ successes in and outside of the classroom. Among the festivities are college- and campus-wide research project showcases, many of which are highly anticipated long-standing traditions. All of these events shine a spotlight on the variety and caliber of student research, scholarship and creative activities (RSCA) happening at San Francisco State.

Undergraduate and graduate students across campus shared their work in posters, presentations, performances and more. This year, the colleges of Liberal & Creative Arts (LCA), Science & Engineering (CoSE), Ethnic Studies (CoES) and Health & Social Sciences (CHSS) held showcases in early May. In April, there was a Graduate Research and Creative Works showcase.

“The purpose of the showcases is to celebrate and make visible the remarkable research and creative work that our students do. This work often goes above and beyond the traditional classroom experience and highlights the experiential learning opportunities that students have at SF State,” said Kinesiology Professor Kate Hamel, who is also assistant dean of faculty development and scholarship. “These events provide students an opportunity to develop presentation skills and network with peers, faculty and community members.”

At the second annual CHSS showcase, Hamel was pleasantly surprised to see that students generally stayed off their phones — which everyone knows is quite a feat — and fully engaged with the event. Students chatted and networked even as the event approached a close.

“My research experience at SF State has been so encouraging. The Marcus Fellowship has allowed me to delve into topics I’m passionate about from an academic standpoint,” said LCA showcase participant Eleanor Boone, a Political Science major with a Pre-Law certificate graduating this semester. Her work examines the relationship between contemporary religious liberty decisions and sociopolitical minority rights at the Supreme Court level, and conveys the broader implication of the current court’s decisions. “It’s grown my confidence in my abilities as a student, and I hope to continue my research as I pursue higher education.”

At the project showcases, students shared their research and creative work to faculty, staff and external community members.

While the Lam Family College of Business doesn’t have a project showcase, it held its annual Innovation Pitch Competition in April. Students pitched business projects to entrepreneurs, investors and faculty for an opportunity to compete for $10,000 in shared cash prizes and receive entrepreneurship feedback.

In addition to the college-level showcases, the University held its annual Student Research Competition, in which SF State students from all colleges shared their independent research. This year, 11 student delegates from the SF State competition advanced to the 38th CSU Student Research Competition at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Four of the SF State participants placed second in their respective categories after competing against hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students from across the 23-school CSU system.

Visit SF State Create to learn more about these showcases and student research opportunities.