Hi, I’m Matt
I am an independent researcher and a Psychology student at Ottawa University, where I currently maintain a 4.0 GPA. For over two decades, I worked as a journalist, a role that served as a front-row seat to the complexities of human behavior, evolution, and community resilience.
My journey into psychology was forged in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While reporting from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, I witnessed the profound strength of community comfort, but I also saw its limits. I began to notice a recurring pattern: in the wake of trauma, well-intentioned peer support often stands in for professional care, allowing individuals to slip through the cracks of a hardening system.
Today, I am "turning that worry into work". I have developed the Expressive Space Framework and the Expressive Inversion Hypothesis to diagnose and address the systemic disempowerment found in digital labor and education ecosystems. My work integrates Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC) to advocate for "habitats" that prioritize psychological autonomy, creative flow, and economic transparency.
I am not just studying theory; I am building a roadmap for a healthier way to live and work together—one that respects both the individual and the collective. I am currently seeking a residential research environment and a scholarly "pit crew" to help scale these frameworks into validated interventional tools.
Adjunct Instruction, Autonomy, Creative Flow, Emotional Support, and Transparency
This conceptual essay examines student success in digital higher education through five interrelated dimensions: adjunct instruction, student autonomy, creative flow, emotional and social support, and transparency. Drawing on literature in digital learning, motivation, and higher education, the paper argues that student success cannot be reduced to content delivery alone. Instead, meaningful online learning depends on psychological, relational, and structural conditions that support engagement, persistence, trust, and deeper academic development. The essay also highlights the institutional role of adjunct faculty and calls for a more holistic, human-centered model of digital higher education.
An "Us Versus Them" Mentality
This presentation analyzes groupthink as a social psychological process and considers its potential influence on voting behavior in the United States. Using foundational concepts from social psychology, it examines how conformity pressures, in-group cohesion, normative influence, and the pursuit of consensus may shape political judgments and electoral choices. The presentation also considers the role of partisan identity, media reinforcement, and social belonging in limiting dissent and reducing critical reflection within political groups. By linking classic groupthink theory to contemporary voting behavior, this work offers an accessible framework for understanding how collective social processes can affect democratic participation and individual political decision-making. This material was prepared as a psychology presentation and is shared as an educational and scholarly resource.
This essay explores the psychological impact of video games on child development, drawing from contemporary research in observational learning, cognitive growth, and social behavior. Challenging both alarmist and overly permissive views, it argues for a balanced, evidence-based approach to gaming—one that emphasizes parental mediation, thoughtful content selection, and the importance of context. Grounded in psychological theory and supported by recent studies, this paper offers practical insight for parents, educators, and mental health professionals navigating the digital lives of children.
This paper examines the continuity of state overreach in the United States by comparing historical episodes of government coercion with modern legal and administrative practices. Drawing on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, George Takei’s TED Talk “Why I Love a Country That Once Betrayed Me,” Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, and Justice Neil Gorsuch’s Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, the essay argues that American state power has not fundamentally changed since the era of Japanese American internment and the civil rights movement; it has simply refined its methods.
Through historical analysis, political theory, and personal narrative, the paper shows how the tools of state control—from internment camps to courtrooms, from police batons to administrative law—evolve in form but maintain the same underlying reflex: when the state feels threatened or embarrassed, individual rights become negotiable. The essay explores how modern bureaucratic systems and expanding legal codes create new forms of constraint that mirror older injustices in subtler, more procedural ways.
By placing Takei, King, Thoreau, and Gorsuch in conversation with a contemporary experience in the federal justice system, this work highlights the persistence of “law and order” as a legitimizing language for political decision-making. The paper ultimately argues that meaningful patriotism requires confronting these patterns honestly and resisting the assumption that legality alone constitutes justice.