MAKATI SCIENCE TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF THE PHILIPPINES 1

EFFECTS OF INTERNET MEME INTERPRETATION TO EMOTION

REGULATION OF YOUNG FILIPINO ADULTS

A Research Proposal
Presented to the
College of Psychology
Makati Science Technological Institute
of the Philippines

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements of the Degree
Bachelor of Science in Psychology

by
ABSIN, RITCHELYN LASAY
BALBERAN, KIER JOHN DOLOR
LASTIMOSA, JOSH MAY REGALA
MAÑIBO, CLIVE BRIAN ODAN
SOBREVEGA, CAESAR JOHN PANTE
SOTTO, GENEROSA BELLE LABANIEGO

October 2022
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ABSTRACT

Internet-based memes are the visual rhetoric images that have become

dominant and widely spread in the digitalized world in today's age due to the

wide manifestations of digitalization and modern society. This study would like

to find out if internet-based memes have a profound effect on the emotion

regulation of Filipino adults (18–25 age range) since these ages are more

frequently users of the internet and more capable of responding to emotional

events (Isaacowitz et al, 2017) . In order to conduct this study, the researchers

will conduct experiments in controlled laboratories with the voluntary

participation of a representative sample from the said target population. The

results of this study will be significant and essential in order to know if internet-

based memes could have a profound effect on someone's emotion regulation or

not.

Keywords: internet-based meme, visual, digitalization, modern

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page

Prefatory No 1

1.0 Problem Rationale 5

1.1 Rationale 4
1.2 Research Impediments 9

2.0 The Research Questions

2.1 Literature Review
2.2 Theoretical Framework
2.3 Research Questions

2.4 Research Paradigm

3.0 Research Methods

3.1 Research Design

3.2 Meaning
3.3 Subjects and Study Site
3.4 Data Measure/ (or Instrument)
3.5 Data Gathering Procedure
3.6 Ethical Considerations
3.7 Data Analysis

References

Appendix I: Permit to Conduct the Interviews

Appendix II: Request for Pertinent Data
Appendix III: Informed Consent for Research Participants
Appendix IV: Informed Consent for Research Participation
Recruited Concept Mapping Participants
Appendix V: Survey Questionnaires
Appendix VI: The Interview Protocol
Appendix VII: The Interview Protocol for Tutors/Reviewers
Appendix VIII: The Interview Protocol
Appendix IX: Concept Mapping Instrument
Appendix X: Documentary Analysis
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Appendix XI: Timetable for Research

Appendix XII: Budget Proposal

Curriculum Vitae
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CHAPTER 1

THE PROBLEM RATIONALE

1.1 Rationale

In today’s age, the internet itself and different social media platforms also

become predominant to the current epoch of the society due to the

manifestations of the digital age. The current age of modernity has a major

concern to improve the human advancement along with dominant innovations

and progresses that could also possibly contribute to the emerging changes to

the world of communication, interaction and way of living. Further, the digital

age or the information era also made several changes to the world of

communication by introducing the internet and its virtual-based world.

According to Puspita & Rohedi (2017), the internet age also become a medium

for everyone to communicate effectively and efficiently. It also serves as a

powerful tool to pamper and give an ease to the current users. This

worldwide system can also connect a lot of people and let the said population

to share everything from life events, music taste, hobbies, past time,

significant life values and etc. Precisely, the worldwide system or the “NET”

itself provided a lot of opportunities for the humankind especially about

entertainment, communication and interaction. Howbeit, since the current age

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generated a lot of changes and advantages to the current world especially for

the sense of communication and virtual-based interaction, it also created a

lot of issues in terms of affecting the emotion regulation of an individual

specifically due to the latent contents of internet-based memes that being

created due to the mass popularity, usage of the internet and virtual-based

platforms. Therefore, because of this given fact, the researchers decided to

study the effect of internet memes to the emotion regulation of the young

Filipino adults. Thus, the researchers are also intrigued to study the said

current and popular trend as part of the contemporary issues of the

humankind.

In the other hand, since the researcher already said that the focus of the

study would be the effects of internet memes to the emotion regulations of

the young Filipino adults. Therefore, the independent variable of the study

would be the internet-based meme itself. According to Milosavljević (2019),

internet memes could possibly define as set of pictures, videos and GIFs with

humorous contents (more frequently the funny ones) that totally become

popular to the internet age. Internet-based memes also become a huge

product of the creativity, imagination and humorous skillsets of the social

media and internet users. Further, these kind of humorous graphical images,

videos, and contents are actually scattered on different social media platforms

(such as Facebook, Twitter & Instagram) and also to the worldwide web. The
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internet-memes also have different visual rhetoric and latent contents that

also add to the rich widespread of these images to the virtual-based world. In

behalf of this, these trends also have a significant implication to the viewers. It

affects the perception of individuals, political decisions, marketing preferences

and decisions and also imaginations (Holland, 2020). Therefore, it is very

essential to study the effect of the internet-based memes and its nature

because it can affect a lot of non-physical elements. Moreover, due to this

evident fact, the researchers are also interested to know if the internet memes

also have a significant effect to the one of most important cognitive state —

the emotion regulation respectively among the population of young Filipino

adults.

In the second place, according to Rolston & Richardson (n.d), the emotion

regulation refers to the term that describe the person’s ability to effectively

and efficiently manage his or her emotions and at the same time on how to

respond to emotional events, experiences and situations. Thus, the

implications of the emotion regulation also provide an idea that the individuals

have an ability to control emotional responses, to achieve emotional stability

and how to react respectively. Further, due to this given definition, it is also

safely to deduce that the study about emotional regulation in today’s age is

also important specifically the effects of internet-based exposures to the said

variable. Moreover, in order to conduct this study, the researchers decided to

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limit the age range of adult population because according to Brutas (2022)

there is an estimated and roughly 83% of Filipinos who are users of different

social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Moreover,

according to Isaacowitz et al (2017) younger adults have better emotion

regulation and emotional processing (18 - 25 years old) rather than the older

adults. The said researchers stated that during the older age of adults, the

stressor diversity becomes less and it is associated with the loss of ability to

respond effectively to negative events and also to stressors. Therefore, in

order to conduct this study, the researchers will only focus on the said target

population. The future results of this study will also help the said population to

know if the internet- based memes have a significant effect or impact to the

emotion regulation and emotional well- being.

Furthermore, in the last part of the study, the researchers also would like to

fulfill the research gaps to this future research. Thus, according to Akil et al

(2022) the exposure on depressive internet memes also increased the

depressive tendencies, depressive moods and it also affected the self -

regulation based on the results of the researcher’s study. However, on the

other hand, according to Gardner et al (2021), although depressive memes

have a significant impact on the emotion regulation it could be also be

beneficial for some ways through the usage of normalization. It cannot be

totally perceived that internet-based memes can significantly affect

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someone’s emotional well-being and emotional regulation. Therefore, in order

to shed a light to this gap, the researchers would like to know if internet-based

memes have a significant effect on the emotion regulation of the young

Filipino adults. Besides the future results of the study itself will also provide an

important information to the researchers if the internet-based memes could

possibly have a profound effect on emotional regulation of the said

population or it cannot have any profound effects.

1.2 Research Impediments

The researchers of this study entitled “Effects of Internet Meme

Interpretation to Emotion Regulation of Young Filipino Adults” would like to

assess if the said antecedent of the study have a significant effect to the emotion

regulation of the chosen population of the study. The future results of this

research will be important for the researchers in order to know if the stated

independent variable of have a profound or significant effect to emotional

regulation of the target population. Further, the researchers of the said study

will focus only to the population of young Filipino adults (age 18 – 25 years old)

regardless of sexual orientation and gender preferences because according to

the claims of the study mentioned above the young adults have more precise

and effective emotional response unlike to those adults in late adulthood and

middle adulthood phases.

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Furthermore, since internet-based memes could be possibly group into

difference variates such as aggressive, calming, funny ones, depressive, romantic

and etcetera the researchers decided to use two variates: the sad-displayed

internet memes and calming or lighted-mood displayed memes. The researchers

decided to choose these variates in order to avoid the unethical concerns such as

using of dark humors, aggressive-displayed graphics, sexual contents and also

those traumatic-visual displayed contents to the future participants of the study.

Moreover, the researchers will also inspect the graphical images that will be use

before conducting the experiment in order to ensure that the ethical

considerations, mental and emotional well-being of the participants will be

valued precisely.

Furthermore, given the evident fact that the COVID-19 is still predominant to

the current society and the health of the participants would be at risk, the

researchers decided to conduct the administration of antecedents and

treatments in different two laboratory set ups. The chairs would be one (1) to

three (3) feet away in order to ensure the safety measures of the participants.

The researchers will also use projectors for each different rooms in order to

show the internet-based meme contents for each group. The distribution of

questionnaires as a research instrument will be distributed to participants after

the viewing of internet-based memes. The researchers will also give fifteen to

twenty (15 – 20) minutes for the participants to answer the questionnaires
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respectively. Moreover, in order to prevent the possible degree of unnecessary

variables and things that might affect the study, the researchers will also ensure

that the electricity and power supply are available before conducting the

experiments. Further, the researcher may not also control the other

circumstances that might also limit the study such as physical environment and

other issues of the participants such as possible absenteeism on the day of the

exact experiment. Moreover, although the current situation totally limits the

possibility of conducting the study in a more socially rich interaction inside the

laboratory set up, the researchers will still remain objective through proper

administrations of antecedents, treatments and questionnaires. The researchers

will still ensure the confidentiality, anonymity of the respondents and the privacy

of data will be valued accordingly.

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REFERENCES

Akil, A. M., Ujhelyi, A., & Logemann, A. H.N., (2022) Exposure to Depression

Memes on Social Media Increases Depressive Mood and It is moderated

by Self-Regulation: Evidence From Self-Report and Resting EEG

Assessments. Frontiers in Psychology.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.8.80065

Brutas, K. (2022). Social Media and Privacy: The Philippine Experience.

Foundation for Media Alternatives. https://fma.ph/resources-gender-

ict/social-media-and-privacy-the-philippine-experience/

Gardner, K. J., Jabs, N.M., Drabble, J., & Akram, U., (2021).Humor Styles influence

the perception of Depression-related Internet Memes in Depression.

HUMOR, 34 (4) , 497-517. https//doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0045

Holland, C. R. (2020). Just a Joke? The Social Impact of Internet Memes. Glasgow

School of Art. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.17476.04485

Isaacowitz, K. DM., Livingstone, K M., & Castro, V. L., (2017). Aging and Emotions:

Experiences, Regulation and Perception. Cognitive Psychology. Advance

Online Publication. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.06.013

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Milosavljevic, I. (2020). THE PHENOMENON OF THE INTERNET MEMES AS A

MANIFESTATION OF COMMUNICATION OF VISUAL SOCIETY - RESEARCH

OF THE MOST POPULAR AND THE MOST COMMON TYPES IN MEDIA

STUDIES AND APPLIED ETHICS (Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 9–27). University of Nis

- Faculty of Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.46630/msae.1.2020.01

Puspita, R. H., & Rohedi, D. (2018). The Impact of Internet Use for Students. In

IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 306, p.

012106). IOP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-

899x/306/1/012106

Rolston, A., & Richardson, E., (n.d). What is Emotion Regulation and How do we

do It?. Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery