Inspired

I’ve been feeling lately like I’m not cut out for research. I’m a slow, thoughtful, global kind of scholar. Empirical research involves a whole lot of isolating variables, eliminating biases, and worst of all, making decisions. I want to know about the biases — the complexity of a situation is what I find interesting, but I’m not detail-oriented enough to account for all of that in a statistical model. I get that we need to isolate variables in order to really understand how they interact with one another, but I have come to think that maybe I shouldn’t be the one to do that part.

Today, one of my most-cited authors came to speak at Berkeley, and he reminded me that research can be done in context; in fact, his studies are designed to work with the crazy world of ninth grade. Today, he described a study in which the treatment and control conditions were fun classroom lessons (at their actual school) and the outcome measures were (a) how much hot sauce a student would make another student eat if he or she felt ostracized by that person, and (b) teacher nominations of students whose conduct improved by the end of the year. HOT SAUCE! Hot sauce. I love that I’m learning about how items function in a survey and how to read/identify/use a scientifically rigorous study, but what I find really compelling is seeing what people do. In context.

Beyond hearing about this study, I learned two notable things about this dude today. First, he used to be a middle school teacher and is now a developmental psychologist. I really admire that he is so grounded in schools and that he conducts his studies with kids in their actual classes. I also really admire that he considers studying adolescents developmental psychology, because it is. The second thing I learned is that he just graduated, like, a year and a half ago. I was heavily citing his work before he even graduated. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse about my own trajectory.

In conclusion, revenge hot sauce = science.