Standing next to my poster during my presentation
Author: Caroline Dina | Major: Psychology | Semester: Spring 2023
My name is Caroline Dina, and I am a sophomore psychology major and statistics minor in the honors college here at the University of Arkansas. My research looked into changes in perceived willpower levels and positive and negative affect (positive and negative emotions) throughout the day. Specifically, I was interested on whether levels of willpower decreased throughout the day. This research will allow future studies on whether there is a specific amount of time after first experiencing negative affect that willpower decreases.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend the Society for Affective Sciences conference in Long Beach, California. This is a psychological research conference that brings together many different individuals with a specific interest in affective science within psychology. This conference pushed me in many ways as a student. In order to submit to the conference, I had to generate a poster idea and abstract. This was my first time doing this, so it was a little daunting. I worked heavily with my research mentor, Dr. Jennifer Veilleux, to get this abstract ready for submission. Utilizing other research studies and our current data to write up abstracts and eventual posters is something that I will be expected to do a lot in the future, so I am thankful for the opportunity to start now. After being accepted, I had to generate a poster and practice presenting this. Going through this process allowed me to fine-tune my presentation skills and enhanced my ability to answer on-the-spot questions about the research.
Attending the conference itself was an incredible experience. On the first night, I had the opportunity to present my research and be asked questions on the topic. I got incredible feedback and suggestions to take the study in different directions. One of my favorite questions was whether we looked at willpower levels throughout the week as well. I had not considered looking at the data from this lens, but getting asked this question inspired me to do so! On the other days, I got to listen to top researchers in the field discuss their projects and passions. Doing this opened my eyes to how vast the field of psychology is and challenged me to dive into other areas of psychological research. I also got to meet other students and teachers from universities throughout the globe. These networking experiences allowed me to learn from the journeys of older students and take advice from advanced psychologists on how to further my career.
Overall, attending this conference allowed me to develop my love for psychology even further. This conference inspired me to look into parts of research I had never even heard of. In terms of what is next for me, I will be diving deep into the existing literature and looking over my conference notes to inspire my next research venture. Research is something that can be overwhelming at times, but having conference opportunities allows me to find topics that fuel my fire for research and make the work worth it. I can confidently say that none of this would have been possible without the Honors College’s incredible support, so I am grateful to them for all they have done for me.