Writing On All Things Psychology

a blog for writings on topics in psychology.

[psychwritings]

Stress in Graduate School

The University of Maryland released this past week an article grieving the loss of an undergraduate psychology student who died tragically (College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2023). My classrooms on campus this week to say the least, have been grim. My colleagues have been receiving emails from students distressed by the event, where they or a friend saw the student die.

Our students have also been actively following the Israel-Hamas war, seeing the same atrocities and traumas that we all see on our TVs. Teaching young adults during a time such as this is not simple, easy, or emotionally light. If we are to do our best in this situation, it is imperative that our own mental health be given special attention.

Andrew Cain for Inside Higher Ed writes,

I want you to know that you are not alone and many folks on campus see you, understand you and want to support you. Your contributions are valued—and not just those you make in the lab, in the classroom or in scholarly journals. Your worth and your identity extend far beyond such achievements.

It was necessary to take time today to share these words with the followers of this blog. Sharing a bit of hope and kindness have the potential to make small meaningful impacts for our mental and emotional well-being.

Take care,

[psychwritings]

Stephen Olejnik ends his paper summarizing the methodological steps necessary in multivariate analysis of variance with this quote:

"...good research introduces at least as many questions as it answers."

For those of us currently doing psychological research, I thought this was an important point for us to keep in mind. We can only do so much in one paper, but what we leave for readers to uncover next is also of extreme importance, if not equally important to the results of the current study.

If any followers are looking for more statistical guidance, let me know. I am happy to provide resources for different methods commonly used across psychological research.

Citation:

Olejnik, S. (2010). Multivariate analysis of variance. The reviewer’s guide to quantitative methods in the social sciences, 315-328.

[psychologypunk]

Figuring out a way to inject environmentalism, feminism, and community care into psychology. I'm doing my own research but please feel free to reply to this or message me with your own thoughts and ideas !!

[psychwritings]

"Such patients, fossilised in the past, can only be at home, oriented, in the past. Time, for them, has come to a stop. I hear Stephen R. screaming with terror and confusion when he returns - screaming for a past which no longer exists. But what can we do? Can we create a time-capsule, a fiction? Never have I known a patient so confronted, so tormented, by anachronism..."

- Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

excerpt from: The Lost Mariner

[psychwritings]

But here's what most people don't understand about oxytocin. It's a stress hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response. It's as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound. And when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel, instead of bottling it up. Your stress response wants to make sure you notice when someone else in your life is struggling so that you can support each other. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you.

- Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.

[psychwritings]

Working on your masters thesis or doctoral dissertation in psychology?

There are a plentitude of resources out there to help! The American Psychological Association is a great place to start, with their article on dissertations and research. This article covers topics like:

finding funding for your dissertation

overcoming writers block

publishing your dissertation

balancing your dissertation with your social life

The Association for Psychological Science also has many resources to choose from, including:

historically great dissertations to read and learn from

how to choose a dissertation topic

completing your dissertation before beginning your clinical internship

managing productivity during COVID-19

Be sure reblog and add additional resources if you have any others. We are here to help everyone!

Happy writing!

[psychwritings]

How do we regulate our emotions? The answer is surprisingly simple: by thinking about them. The prefrontal cortex allows each of us to contemplate his or her own mind, a talent psychologists call metacognition. We know when we are angry; every emotional state comes with self-awareness attached, so that an individual can try to figure out why he's feeling what he's feeling. If the particular feeling makes no sense—if the amygdala is simply responding to a loss frame, for example—then it can be discounted. The prefrontal cortex can deliberately choose to ignore the emotional brain.

- Jonah Lehrer

excerpt from How We Decide

[psychwritings]

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Viktor E. Frankl

[psychwritings]

“The question at stake," said Epictetus, "is no common one; it is this:—Are we in our senses, or are we not?”

Excerpt From The Golden Sayings of Epictetus Epictetus

[psychwritings]

"Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in."

Brenè Brown,  Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

[psychwritings]

"Active and ongoing self-reflection on issues of power related to individual experiences of privilege and oppression are key to grounding one’s activism and leadership in a larger movement and connecting one’s leadership to actual social change experiences as a result of increased activism. Examples of this might include using the theoretical principles of Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; e.g., racism is pervasive) to guide admissions decisions, course content, student mentoring, faculty discussions, and community engagement (Haskins & Singh, 2015). Other examples might include counseling psychologists intentionally initiating conversations within their professional and personal networks about the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement."

"Regardless of the social change action selected, it is imperative that Black voices be believed, supported, and uplifted by counseling psychologists due to the systemic silencing of Black perspectives within society."

Candice Cromwell, et al. in Black Lives Matter: A Call to Action for Counseling Psychology Leaders

Citation: Crowell, C., Mosley, D., Falconer, J., Faloughi, R., Singh, A., Stevens-Watkins, D., & Cokley, K. (2017). Black Lives Matter: A Call to Action for Counseling Psychology Leaders. The Counseling psychologist, 45(6), 873–901.

[psychwritings]

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Viktor E. Frankl

[psychology-daily]

[psychwritings]

Psychologists are viewed as the authoritative figures on the topics we study. But that authority comes with important responsibility: we have to remember that it is our interpretations of what happened in the studies that get voiced, not our participants—they rarely get to give their input on how we write about them in our papers and speak about them in the press or in meetings with policymakers (Hegarty & Rutherford, 2019; Lewis & Wai, 2021). There is always a danger when we occupy these positions in which we are speaking for others, particularly when we are speaking for those who have less power than we do (Hegarty & Rutherford, 2019).

Neil A. Lewis, Jr., What counts as good science? How the battle for methodological legitimacy affects public psychology.

[psychwritings]

The most important thing to remember is that the more rapport we have with the unconscious mind, the more we strive to acknowledge the archetypes of our personal unconscious, and the more we bring them into consciousness the less trouble we have in dealing with others and the more harmony we have in our personal lives.

Richard Roberts, Tales for Jung Folk

[psychwritings]

One of the many interesting and surprising experiences of the beginner in child analysis is to find in even very young children a capacity for insight which is often far greater than that of adults.

- Melanie Klein

[psychwritings]

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Carl Sagan