Sara's Blog

The Benefits of Rejection

Hello again lovely readers!

I'm sure this title has you enticed in some fashion. The idea of rejection may be a sore point for some, or an inexperienced reality for others.

I currently am on the former. For about 7 months, I spent time preparing, selecting, and submitting applications for Ph.D. programs in clinical psychology. The month of February has been interview/rejection month. As it stands, I have yet to receive an interview for a Ph.D. position and it's likely I will need to reapply in a year or two. Though I still have not heard back from my #1 and #4, I'm preparing for the worst. 

I must confess, I am one of those individuals who has always made herself busy by doing everything possible in the present to prepare for the future. And though I have incredible letters of rec and years of research experience, there is still someone out there who has done more than me. 

As reality of rejection sets in, I find myself hating the question, "What are you doing after graduation?" So much so that I've decided to leave the state for an extended weekend (my version of spring break). After I booked my flight, I felt a bit of clarity. 

I am not one who believes everything happens for a reason, but I do believe we control how we handle situations. So my current plan is to take time and think if I would like to A) go to an MA program, B) do more research, or C) do different clinical work. My support system here at DU has been INCREDIBLE! I will even be presenting Plan B possibilities to my clinical lab so they can weigh in opinions, offer advice, etc.

By no means have I been handling this in the most graceful of ways, but rejection is part of the process. I would rather be rejected and keep trying than to know I had a chance at following my passion and never took it.

What I'm trying to say, is that we all feel some bit of pain. Failure is part of the game. It's how you challenge that failure that separates you from just another passive observer of your life. 

 

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For those of you interested in weighing opinions on what I should do next, see the below options I have come up with thus far:

1) MA Program at Columbia, NYU, or Pepperdine

2) Research with one of the mentors I applied to work with

3) Apply to work in Etkin Lab @ Stanford (http://etkinlab.stanford.edu/)

4) Apply to work on different research projects with PTSD that the Dept. of Defense or NIH is funding

5) Work in the Congo with human trafficking victims

6) Work in a clinical setting, or organization, with human trafficking victims 

7) Apply for an International Rescue Committee Position 

 

Thoughts? Post a comment!

 

 

San Diego & SPSP Birthday Celebration!

So this year, I spent my birthday in sunny San Diego! Coincidentally, the annual Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference was being held in California this year and I was presenting some of my emotion regulation research at Emotion Pre-Conference. 

I of course had a blast and was able to meet what I reference as “intellectual crushes” because I find myself constantly on their websites or reading their research to unwind. Here were some of my favorite spottings of the conference:

• Abigail Marsh (researches psychopaths & extreme altruists)
• http://www.abigailmarsh.com/
• Barb Fredrickson (researches positive emotion)
• http://www.unc.edu/peplab/barb_fredrickson_page.html
• John Dovido (researches helping behaviors)
• http://psychology.yale.edu/faculty/john-dovidio
• Kristen Lindquist (emotion responses in brain, detectable?)
• http://nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~lindqukr/
• Jerry Clore (types of emotions)
• http://clore.socialpsychology.org/ 

If you’re an undergrad and you want to go to grad school or into academia (particularly research), it is great for you to do what you can to get your name and research out into the field that you seek to be a part of. If this is something you’re interested in, please contact me so we can try to get you connected with a research lab.

 

Here is my abstract:

REGULATION OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EMOTION: EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CONTEXT

Previous research has demonstrated the use of emotion regulation strategies can vary by social context. One unique social context, in terms of emotion regulation, is an annual art festival that creates a temporary culture known as Burning Man. In this social context, participants use expressive suppression (a strategy generally associated with maladaptive outcomes) less frequently, and cognitive reappraisal (a strategy associated with adaptive outcomes) more frequently (McRae, Heller, John, & Gross, 2011).  What is unclear is whether these changes in emotion regulation strategy use are different for the regulation of positive and negative emotions. To address this question, participants at Burning Man were asked to report their use of expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal, when at the festival and at home. Using three separate datasets, we demonstrated that the decreased use of suppression is more strongly driven by the decreased suppression of positive emotions at Burning Man. We did not observe systematic differences in the reappraisal of positive and negative emotions.  These findings have implications for understanding the maladaptive effects of suppression and the contexts in which they are minimized.

 

Here are some links for further information on the conference & my research:

2012 SPSP Conference website:
http://www.spspmeeting.org/

2012 Emotion Pre-Conference: http://psych.la.psu.edu/preconference/index.shtml

Lab research coming out of (Automaticity, Affect, Control & Thought Lab):
http://www.du.edu/psychology/aactlab/aact/AACT_Lab_Home.html

Burning Man Festival (our population):
http://www.burningman.com/