Hard at work March 22, 2010
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So the theme of this week is hard work (see also: living in the lab). Today I am running six participants in my study. Each one of these participants takes an hour and a half so yeah, that’s a lot of lab hours. All this week I am basically running participants every time I have an hour and a half time block free in my day. But in one week it will all be over so there is hope for some relaxation in the near future. I would definitely recommend trying to finish running participants during the fall semester to prevent the problem I am currently having.
In addition to running participants, I am also finishing my first draft of my introduction and methods sections for my paper this week. I am so close to being done with the introduction, only three pages left which I will finish today! Here are two useful research tips I learned while working on my introduction: First, if you find a really useful article a good way to find other relevant sources is to check out the works cited in that article. It’s a quick and easy way to orient yourself toward important authors and articles related to your topic. Second, take advantage of interlibrary loan. If you can’t access the full text of an article online it only takes two seconds to request it through interlibrary loan. The article will usually show up in your email the next day, or if Swem has it in a book in the library they will tell you exactly where it is, you hardly have to do a thing!
Tip of the day: Ask for help.
When you’re feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities and deadlines are closing in don’t be afraid to ask for help. Especially if you know your research will require a lot of data to be input into the computer try to enlist underclassmen interested in getting research experience to help. Your professor will usually give them independent research credit for their work. If you don’t have this option, ask your friends to help you out (on anything that doesn’t involve a breach of confidentiality of course), it can really be a lifesaver!
A Little Background March 15, 2010
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Hello everyone! Welcome to my psychology honors thesis research blog!
Here’s a quick bit of background about the research I am conducting:
I am conducting a study on the social and physiological cognates of looming vulnerability to anxiety. “Looming” is a specific anxiety construct initially presented by Professor John Riskind at George Mason University. It is basically the concept that people experience anxiety as a sense that dangers are rapidly rising in risk as they approach through time or space. I think most William and Mary students with tests and papers looming know exactly what this feels like.
For my project, I am conducting several surveys to gather data about the connection between social relationships (both with parents and romantic partners) and looming anxiety. I am also looking at a link between physiological reactivity and looming anxiety by having participants watch angry or frightening film clips while I measure their heartrates.
Unfortunately this project took a long time to get off the ground, what with IRB approval and programming bugs and whatnot, so with exactly one month until the thesis is due it is serious crunch time! In the next 14 days I will be running 70 hours of participants by myself in the lab. Sanity Warning: do not try this at home! During that time I will also be attempting to finish writing the introduction and methods section for the paper, so it should be some good times. I will keep you posted over the next month as I hopefully get everything done!
Tip of the day: Do an Honors Thesis…Maybe
I was recently accepted to my number one grad school to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology! I am absolutely certain they would not have glanced at my application if I had not done an honors thesis. If you plan to go to grad school or another research related job a thesis is a must! If that’s not your plan by all means do a thesis just keep in mind when you hear everyone talk about how much work it is, they’re not joking.