Presenting My Poster at APS

Author: Hannah Frala | Major: Psychological Science | Semester: Spring 2022

I, Hannah Frala, was able to attend the Association for Psychological Sciences 2022 Convention in Chicago and present my poster which was titled ‘Scrolling Through Instagram at a Party to Avoid Feeling Anxious: How People Use Social Media to Regulate Their Emotions’ thanks to a travel grant from the Honors College. This research was from my honors thesis that I defended this past spring, right before I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, summa cum laude. My research developed a scale to measure how social media is used to manage emotions in three main ways: by looking at content that alleviates negative emotions and provokes positive emotions, looking at emotions that other people have shared onto social media, or by sharing emotions on social media for other people to react to. I also looked at different outcomes that using social media to regulate emotions was associated with, and my results showed that it was related to worsened outcomes, like more depression, anxiety, body image issues, social media addiction, personality pathology, and less adaptive outcomes like life satisfaction, optimism, and social connectedness.

I had been accepted to present at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Convention last year, but ended up not presenting due to the conference being virtual and time limitations, as this research was not a part of my thesis. My mentor, Dr. Jennifer Veilleux, informed me about this conference and that some other members from her research lab, Treating Emotion and Motivational Processes Transdiagnostically, would be going and encouraged me to apply. During the process of preparing my poster, I also applied to present at the University’s undergraduate research poster competition. My poster was awarded the first place prize at this competition! I would highly recommend anyone doing research to apply for it, as I attended the in person poster session and felt that it really helped me prepare for presenting my poster at a national conference.

I was a bit nervous to present my poster, especially since I hadn’t really thought much about my research since my defense, but it went so wonderfully! I felt prepared for the all the questions I received, and it was so rewarding to see other people engaged with my work and finding it interesting. At the end of the hour long poster session, I found myself wishing I had more time to talk to people about my work. I did get to look around a bit at research that other people have done in the same areas, and there were two other students that had conducted really interesting work on Tiktok, so I enjoyed talking with them.

In addition to presenting my poster, I also went to four symposium talks at the conference. I will spare all the details about those, even though I could talk about them for hours, but they were such good learning experiences and I wish I went to more than just the four I did attend. At two of the talks, Dr. Veilleux and members from the lab presented, and I loved getting to see them share their research. It reminded me of the talk I gave when I defended my thesis, although to a much larger group of people, and I hope to someday be able to give a talk as well.

This entire trip was so wonderful, and would not have been possible without funding from the Honors College, so I would like to thank them one more time. I would also like to thank everyone I met and spent time with in Chicago, and Dr. Veilleux for all the support and encouraging me to go (and helping me find my way around the metro). This was my first time ever visiting Chicago, and I have made so many memories I will never forget. I have been told repeatedly that psychology conferences are great experiences, and while I was a little skeptical about how great they actually are, this was such an amazing experience and I could not recommended enough that anyone involved in research should attend at least one during college.

I plan on submitting my research for publication in a peer-reviewed journal within the next couple months. This coming August, I will be beginning my first year of graduate school, studying school psychology, which will lead me to working in public schools and determining what kinds of accommodations or special education services children need, and helping them to succeed academically. I will be working in research as a graduate assistant, and hopefully will be able to attend the National Association of School Psychology’s annual conference next year.