I find it hilarious that some people in Montreal are surprised when I tell them that I am from Japan. Technically, I’m not what some call FOB (Fresh-off-the-boat), since I lived in Indonesia and Malaysia for most of my life. Now I’m in a completely new land of Montreal, studying psychology in a prestigious school. I also find it hilarious how my neighbours in Japan think that I can now read their minds.
Although I was interested in psychology since my teenage years, I was fascinated with the broadness and depth of this subject when I took my first “official” psychology classes in IB (International Baccalaureate) diploma. The fact that psychology can change the lives of many people added another layer to my mad-scientist-curiosity. So much potential, so much fun things can be done… So far, so good.
I enjoyed the new environment of Montreal in my first year of McGill. I’ve never seen so much snow in my life. Last winter, I considered adding “building a snowman” to the list of things I like to do, right below “writing poems”, “reading”, and “handcrafts”. Not forgetting about academics, I took required courses in psychology, some philosophy classes (now it’s my minor), and almost used up my electives. Through Dr Taylor’s social psychology class, I thought that I’m quite into social and personality psychology. My application as honours student went straight to his email address. Harsh reality awaits.
To be honest, I was intimidated when I began working on the honours thesis. The required courses in my first year were all in the textbook, although I know that my professors tried their best to make the classes lively. Now I’m starting to get the feel of real research. Real participants. Real ethics (very harsh reality). Dr Taylor says the honours students are the lucky ones, because we don’t really need to get “good” results. On the other hand, Dr Levitin, who leads my seminar, says we’ll be in an extremely bad situation if we lose our data. After all, there’s no way you can cram the honours thesis, and why would you want to, anyways? The honours theses are probably the first and last time we can ever do pure science (according to Dr Taylor).
Currently, Frank Kachanoff and I are working on a project looking at motivation and how it’s related to autonomy and distinctiveness of the group. We’re interested in the individual’s pursuit of collective goal or behaviour affected by his/her perception of the goal or behaviour, in terms of autonomy and distinctiveness. To do this, we will be studying a specific culture and behaviour: Japanese eating sticky rice. No surprise - I am Japanese, so let’s stick to that.