While debates about hookup culture, “friend-zoning” and the latest controversial music videos happen casually amongst students, there is another, much more technical side to the discussion being had in Binghamton University’s psychology department. Ann Merriwether, Susan Seibold-Simpson and Sean Massey mentor student research labs for the study of sexuality, which have been focused on sexuality as it exists in college and pop culture.

This past Friday, the students presented their findings at the University’s Research Days.

“Combating Violence and Objectification in Music Videos: Visual Exaggeration and Misdirection in Parodies,” was a study headed by Caitlin Sortino, Siu Lam Koo, Rachael Cavallaro and Domenico Lombardi. Both Sortino and Koo got involved with the sexuality lab after working as teaching assistants for Merriwether’s Psychology 111 class.

“We started off with the whole ‘Blurred Lines’ shabang,” said Koo, a senior majoring in integrative neuroscience.

After dozens of parodies started popping up on YouTube mocking Robin Thicke’s original video, the students decided to take a more critical look at these interpretations.

“We were really interested in what people were trying to say about the original videos,” said Sortino, a senior majoring in psychology.

Much of the lab work was coding music videos for sexual objectification and violence, and coding parodies for different strategies, such as gender reversal and exaggeration.

Both Sortino and Koo found the parody videos to be a humorous way to address social issues in pop culture.

“I think it really helps students to know they have other methods to express themselves, and humor is one of them,” Koo said. “They can critique sociopolitical issues using humor in certain ways.”

Kenyon Merriwether and Timothy Hillis headed another study in the lab titled, “I’ll be there for you, like I’ve been there before but only in the friend-zone: College student attitudes towards romance and friendships.”

Merriwether, a junior majoring in integrative neuroscience, said that her own friendships inspired her to study the “friend-zone.”

“I was having a conversation with one of my guy friends, and from that we realized we had very different opinions on who we choose as opposite-sex friends,” Merriwether said. “He was arguing that he wouldn’t start a friendship unless he was attracted to them.”

From there, Merriwether spoke with professor Sean Massey and the two tried to define the term “friend-zone,” which first appeared in a 1993 episode of the sitcom “Friends.” After sending out a survey for their study, the research team combined responses to the question, “What is the ‘friend-zone’?” to create their definition.

The team hypothesized that while men would be friend-zoned more, men with a stronger masculine ideology are less likely to be friend-zoned, among other predictions.

“We did find gender differences, and we found a lot of things we weren’t expecting,” Merriwether said.

The survey confirmed that men are friend-zoned more than women, but found that men with stronger masculine ideology were actually friend-zoned more often.

“If a man has a very macho attitude … it’s kind of turning off women,” said Hillis, a senior majoring in psychology. “We’re seeing a kind of change in the way people are thinking and how they choose who they want to partner with.”