The Backdrop of My Research Career

Moral development is best understood as the development of how our ”attitudes, dispositions, sentiments, and cognitive competences develop and inform moral judgment and action”. Studying moral development is especially exciting as it entails understanding processes that cut across multiple areas of development, such as cognition, social, personality, and emotion.

Two processes of particular relevance to the research lab I am conducting my doctoral training are the development of theory of mind and emotion understanding. Perception and understanding of others’ mental states, beliefs, emotions, and actions is highly critical to our ability to understand others as capable of making good or bad choices, especially when evaluating their choices and character (Helzer & Critcher, 2018; Lagattuta & Kramer, 2022).

• Helzer, E. G., & Critcher, C. R. (2018). What do we evaluate when we evaluate moral character? In K. Gray & J. Graham (Eds.), Atlas of moral psychology (pp. 99–107). The Guilford Press.
• Lagattuta, K. H., & Kramer, H. J. (2022). Theory of mind and moral cognition: Developmental changes in integrating mental states and moral judgments. In M. Killen & J. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of moral development (3rd edition). Psychology Press.

In the midst of finishing up my first graduate course in quantitative methods, my then professor advertised for a course he was teaching the following semester. It was called, “Dynamical Systems Theory”, and, as Jonathan Butner described it, if we enjoyed this quant class, we’ll probably enjoy this new course. It wasn’t taught frequently, and so this was likely my only chance to be exposed to the topic in a classroom setting. After the announcement, I was convinced this was the next step in deepening my understanding of quantitative methods as an undergraduate.

In spite of the onset of a worldwide pandemic, I learned a great deal about dynamical systems theory in spring of 2020 (see here for class syllabus). Dynamical systems theory incorporates time and space in its modeling of complex phenomena, or more specifically, phenomena which emerges from an interaction of lower order parts.

For a more thorough introduction to the core concepts of dynamical systems theory, check out this webpage here. For topical information related to developmental psychology, I would direct readers first to the key figures who made the initial bridge between developmental psychology and DST, Drs. Esther Thelen and Linda B. Smith. Their work centered around biological self-organization (Thelen & Smith, 2007) and infant development.

• Thelen, E. & Smith, L. B. (2007). Dynamic systems theories. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of Child Psychology (pp. 258-312). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0106

Narrative psychology is centered around storytelling in three ways: (1) as a tool in gathering rich data, (2) as a conceptual framework for understanding the human condition, and (3) as an mechanism involved in numerous developmental, personality, and memory processes (Adler et al. 2017; American Psychological Association, n.d.). For an engaging, easy-to-digest article on narratives, check this link here.

Introducing the idea of narrative as a scientific approach can be met with hesitance by some. Whether the concern is rooted in fear or dismay, it usually circles back to wariness of the use of “subjectivity” in research. Stories and memories are inherently imbued with some degree of subjectivity, that is a fair enough claim. However, the account and meaning we derive from any event or series of events (past, present, or future) and how we communicate and process those understandings can have concrete, objective impacts on ourselves and the world around us (Adler et al. 2017). Past narrative research has explored well-being, emotion regulation, conflict, interpersonal relationships, and more, all of which play major roles in the human experience (Adler et al. 2017; McLean et al., 2020; Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman, 1990). Additionally, quantitative methodology has evolved alongside narrative psychology, which allows for robust analytics to extract rich findings and complexities within narrative research.

• Adler, J. M., Dunlop, W. L., Fivush, R., Lilgendahl, J. P., Lodi-Smith, J., McAdams, D. P., McLean, K. C., Pasupathi, M., & Syed, M. (2017). Research methods for studying narrative identity: A primer. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(5), 519-527. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617698202
• American Psychological Association. (n.d). Narrative psychology. In APA dictionary of psychology. Retrieved June 20, 2023, from https://dictionary.apa.org/narrative-psychology
• Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A., & Wotman, S. R. (1990). Victim and perpetrator accounts of interpersonal conflict: Autobiographical narratives about anger. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(5), 994-1005. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.59.5.994
• McLean, K. C., Syed, M., Pasupathi, M., Adler, J. M., Dunlop, W. L., Drustrup, D., Fivush, R., Graci, M. E., Lilgendahl, J. P., Lodi-Smith, J., McAdams, D. P., & McCoy, T. P. (2020). The empirical structure of narrative identity: The initial big three. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(4), 920-944. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000247
• Pasupathi, M. & Adler, J. M. (2021). Narrative, identity, and the life story: Structural and process approaches. The Handbook of Personality Dynamics and Processes, 1, 387-403. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-813995-0.00016-9
• Recchia, H. E., Wainryb, C., Bourne, S., & Pasupathi, M. (2015). Children’s and adolescents’ accounts of helping and hurting others: Lessons about the development of moral agency. Child Development, 86(3), 864-876. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12349

Prior to returning to academia, I worked full-time for a little over a year and a half at a market research specializing in talent acquisition intelligence. As a entry-level worker, this was an excellent opportunity to grow professionally while applying my existing research skills in an industry job. My role entailed interweaving proprietary market research data and publicly available labor market data to provide insights on niche job seeker preferences and trends.

For publicly available data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau are excellent sources for economic-related and population data and statistics. When reading popular news media’s monthly reports on unemployment or job openings, the two afore-mentioned sources are typically what they’re referencing. These two sites house large amounts of data, and various surveys for data collection are managed across numerous governmental teams. As a natural consequence, this can make finding relevant data for your research task a daunting process.

I speak of the intricacies of navigating publicly available data because knowing where to identify key sources of raw data can be an incredibly powerful first step in researching important economic trends. Once located, understanding the methodology, frequency of data collection, and structure of the publicly available dataset can equip you to adequately analyze the data. With this skillset, you can become an expert on economic topics that are oftentimes only loosely understood in the public discourse.