Presenting my research at the Poster Session

Author: Ethan Dennis | Major: Psychology | Semester: Fall 2023

As a part of the ongoing research currently being done for my Honors Thesis, my lab mentor and I have been investigating if different subtypes of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) classified as either undercontrolled (the typical, more impulsive presentation of BPD) or overcontrolled (a lesser-researched subtype associated with social isolation and high standards of competency for tasks deemed important to one’s self-worth) are prompted towards suicidal ideation by self-critical thoughts in the moment specifically related to their subtypes. Because of the Travel Grant that I received from the Honors College, I was able to present this research at the annual meeting of the Society for Research in Psychopathology in St. Louis this fall.

While at the conference, I was able to network with a number of researchers who responded positively to my work and commented on its innovative nature in using ecological momentary assessment in the moment to assess these constructs. I was able to hear the perspectives of leading researchers with a variety of research interests, such as one researcher who gave a talk on the ecological momentary assessment of sleep quality as a predictor for suicide risk, and another researcher who is one of the leading figures in personality-related psychopathology. Being able to talk to such experienced researchers who have a variety of specific interests and experience in research gave me a myriad of perspectives to consider in terms of future directions for analyses in my ongoing thesis study, and also offered an invaluable networking experience for the future.

I was also able to attend a variety of research-related symposia, all of them featuring multiple methodological perspectives on a specific transdiagnostic construct which offered multiple ways of conceptualizing these constructs and served as a helpful introduction for my future research interests. One symposium offered multiple theoretical orientations in examining the effect of chronotype (or one’s natural proclivity to go to sleep at different times throughout the night) in predicting various psychopathologies, and another offered similarly diverse perspectives on fluctuations in suicide risk in those with schizophrenia. I was able to talk to multiple researchers after these presentations with similar research interests to my own, and these just as well offered an invaluable networking opportunity that I only could have received at a conference of this stature.