Inspiring conference.
I attended a 2 days conference which was held at my University - a psychology conference.
Although I wouldn't say the experience was extremely fascinating (due to the location), yet I felt extremely lucky to be able to attend a real psychology conference held so near to me. Why? Because the next conference will be held in the Philippines in 2012! Now, unless I have the financial dependency and feeling highly motivated (ah... now my old lady lecturer just popped up in my head), I doubt I would purposely fly there to attend it.
Hmm... How was it like? It was exactly like our university's own psychology colloquium. However, the differences being:
we were attending one session after another from 9am to 6pm non-stop;
we need to plan ahead of time which sessions to attend to according to our own needs/ interests;
we get to meet psychologists (or psychologists-to-be) from different universities and countries;
we were given opportunities to interact with these diversity of people;
we were exposed to different countries' development in the psychology field;
we were exposed to many different points of views about certain issues...
there were just too many opportunities!
I was inspired by some of the researches in the ones I managed to attend for these two days.
1. The issue about egocentrism in adults.
I think this had the biggest subtle impact in me - despite the fact that I didn't really understand completely about the presentation. We (psychology students) had always knew that children were high in egocentrism - being only able to focus and magnify themselves due to the fact that they were yet to develop the abilities to rationalize thoughts and empathize. Nonetheless, such egocentrism never fade away completely as we grew older. However, we never realize that it lingers within us and had been affecting us in certain activities that we carry in our daily lives.
Though the presentation was about egocentrism in detecting lies, yet I learnt in another way. I realized that it's because of the egocentrism we had under certain conditions (doing something we're uncomfortable with, or perhaps lack in confidence with) - we tend to magnify that thought and emotion to the outside of ourselves.
For instance, an example the presenter given, you're doing a presentation and you're feeling nervous. Then you felt and thought that the audiences were able to track the nervousness in you - the shivering of your voice or limbs, your style of presenting seemed to give out the nervous vibe, your way of standing was showing the non-verbal cues of nervousness, etc. However, it's just really your feeling and perception - the audience may not be able to detect those what you thought they were able to.
I learnt, greatly. I learnt that there were many things in life, we tend to be paranoid and magnify those paranoid feelings externally. We focused too much on ourselves when it comes to certain negativity or postivity. We assume people would judge us the way we judge ourselves in a third person point of view, when often times such things never even really happen. Everything it's just the matter of our thoughts - our egocentrism!
2. Qualitative research and coperal punishment in local schools.
One of the most eye opening research, by one of the best lecturers in my University. Who else but my thesis supervisor? =p Truly enjoyed her presentation with lots of laughs, awed moments, and very surprising findings. Charismatic? She had always been.
Many researches presented and attended during the conference were quantitative researches; and of course, I wasn't surprised with it. Human beings are always more comfortable with concrete data and numbers - it's like a sense of assurance and being able to have hard cold evidence with the findings in their hands. Moreover, numbers and I aren't really... good friends anyway. Haha! But anyhow, I was happy to be able to attend one qualitative research based presentation (as other qualitative topics were just... blah) and to learn how to present qualitative data in the future, possibly!
Also, a lot of surprising new knowledge were being exposed in the study regarding coperal punishment in local schools. From the government's rule in coperal punishment, to the various bias/prejudice/discrimination students were being put under when they were being punished, to the ways they were being punished, and also - the impacts of such punishments (either extreme or silly ones) to these young kids and adults. The research got me so interested to join the team and to venture out in other schools in different states! Hmm... Let me dream. Haha~
Alright... I'll continue this maybe later today.
I need to get myself prepared to get out of my crib.
*groans*
-Jas-
Although I wouldn't say the experience was extremely fascinating (due to the location), yet I felt extremely lucky to be able to attend a real psychology conference held so near to me. Why? Because the next conference will be held in the Philippines in 2012! Now, unless I have the financial dependency and feeling highly motivated (ah... now my old lady lecturer just popped up in my head), I doubt I would purposely fly there to attend it.
Hmm... How was it like? It was exactly like our university's own psychology colloquium. However, the differences being:
we were attending one session after another from 9am to 6pm non-stop;
we need to plan ahead of time which sessions to attend to according to our own needs/ interests;
we get to meet psychologists (or psychologists-to-be) from different universities and countries;
we were given opportunities to interact with these diversity of people;
we were exposed to different countries' development in the psychology field;
we were exposed to many different points of views about certain issues...
there were just too many opportunities!
I was inspired by some of the researches in the ones I managed to attend for these two days.
1. The issue about egocentrism in adults.
I think this had the biggest subtle impact in me - despite the fact that I didn't really understand completely about the presentation. We (psychology students) had always knew that children were high in egocentrism - being only able to focus and magnify themselves due to the fact that they were yet to develop the abilities to rationalize thoughts and empathize. Nonetheless, such egocentrism never fade away completely as we grew older. However, we never realize that it lingers within us and had been affecting us in certain activities that we carry in our daily lives.
Though the presentation was about egocentrism in detecting lies, yet I learnt in another way. I realized that it's because of the egocentrism we had under certain conditions (doing something we're uncomfortable with, or perhaps lack in confidence with) - we tend to magnify that thought and emotion to the outside of ourselves.
For instance, an example the presenter given, you're doing a presentation and you're feeling nervous. Then you felt and thought that the audiences were able to track the nervousness in you - the shivering of your voice or limbs, your style of presenting seemed to give out the nervous vibe, your way of standing was showing the non-verbal cues of nervousness, etc. However, it's just really your feeling and perception - the audience may not be able to detect those what you thought they were able to.
I learnt, greatly. I learnt that there were many things in life, we tend to be paranoid and magnify those paranoid feelings externally. We focused too much on ourselves when it comes to certain negativity or postivity. We assume people would judge us the way we judge ourselves in a third person point of view, when often times such things never even really happen. Everything it's just the matter of our thoughts - our egocentrism!
2. Qualitative research and coperal punishment in local schools.
One of the most eye opening research, by one of the best lecturers in my University. Who else but my thesis supervisor? =p Truly enjoyed her presentation with lots of laughs, awed moments, and very surprising findings. Charismatic? She had always been.
Many researches presented and attended during the conference were quantitative researches; and of course, I wasn't surprised with it. Human beings are always more comfortable with concrete data and numbers - it's like a sense of assurance and being able to have hard cold evidence with the findings in their hands. Moreover, numbers and I aren't really... good friends anyway. Haha! But anyhow, I was happy to be able to attend one qualitative research based presentation (as other qualitative topics were just... blah) and to learn how to present qualitative data in the future, possibly!
Also, a lot of surprising new knowledge were being exposed in the study regarding coperal punishment in local schools. From the government's rule in coperal punishment, to the various bias/prejudice/discrimination students were being put under when they were being punished, to the ways they were being punished, and also - the impacts of such punishments (either extreme or silly ones) to these young kids and adults. The research got me so interested to join the team and to venture out in other schools in different states! Hmm... Let me dream. Haha~
Alright... I'll continue this maybe later today.
I need to get myself prepared to get out of my crib.
*groans*
-Jas-
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