Madyson King presenting research poster
Author: Madyson King | Major: Psychology | Semester: Summer 2025
I’m Madyson King, an undergraduate here at the University of Arkansas with a major in Psychology and minor in Arabic. In the second week of June this year, I had the opportunity to share my research conducted in the Social Perception and Human Evolution Research (SPHERE) Lab. I presented a poster at a conference attended by scholars and colleagues in the evolutionary psychology field across the world.
I traveled to Atlantic City, New Jersey to attend the Northeastern Evolutionary Psychology Society conference. There, I presented a poster over a study I had conducted the previous semester. I attended the conference with my thesis mentor and other students in my lab.
The trip helped me move forward in my research by inspiring new ideas and meeting people who were as interested in it as I was. These newfound scientists helped reinvigorate my passion for psychology and helped remind me that my research really did matter beyond an undergraduate lens. It had the potential to reach others and inspire them as much as they all inspired me.
A few of the professors who presented some of their own research at the conference stopped by and asked questions about my poster. Overall, the feedback was very positive. There was one person who said that my poster discussing humor styles had reawakened his interest in perceived humor styles in men.
A few days after getting home from the conference, I was pleased to see an email in my inbox from a doctoral student at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Someone at the conference who had seen my poster recommended it to him because his doctoral research explores similar theoretical ideas. He asked for a version of my work that I can share to help him with the literature review and refining hypotheses.
I sent him a digital copy of my poster and it felt very rewarding to have my poster stand out and help other scholars in the field.
The trip helped aid my professional development solely by being, breathing in a professional setting. It’s one thing to sit and read research papers in a classroom, but to be face to face with the researchers you cite in your own papers is next level.
Meeting professors and students from all over the world was eye opening. My roommate was a girl from the University of New Mexico. I met another two guys from Brazil. There were virtual attendees from Russia and Australia. It was a little surreal that for instance, me an undergraduate from Arkansas and a professor from Canada ended up in the same room, same time in New Jersey.
The most influential person I met had to be Geoffrey Miller, a well-known American evolutionary psychologist. He had been at a different conference the week prior but was sticking around long enough for us to attend dinner with him.
Meeting him in person was an honor. He was very nice and got to know me and the member of my lab’s names. I told him for my honors thesis, I was planning on studying parasocial relationships and he said it was a good one, that those were understudied in the field.
Having such a respected and well-known researcher in the field validate my research idea helped motivate me to keep exploring my topic.
At the conference, there was a physical poster session where I and other students could display our research in a digestible, concise format. It was like a science fair! What I learned was how to effectively explain my research to someone quickly and accept criticism and questions. By engaging with viewers this way, it enabled me to dissect my material and understand it on a deeper level.
Advice I would share for future students attending the conference is go through the program beforehand and read the abstracts of presentations that sound interesting to you. If possible, start thinking of possible questions to ask before you even hear the presentation. Something I wished I had done was to take more time to formulate thoughtful questions.
What’s next for me is I will be attending next year’s conference which will be taking place in Pittsburgh. I’m already super excited! My thesis advisor is planning for me to give a five-minute presentation next year which will be a step up. It will be intimidating, but an excellent opportunity for growth in public speaking.
As for now, I will move onto senior year of my undergraduate career and keep conducting research in the SPHERE Lab here on campus. I am grateful to the Honors College for helping fund this experience!