In this podcast interview, Dr. Heather Lench explains why she selected two graduate schools in the state of California for her master’s and doctorate degrees in psychology. While most of the reasons relate to the school, program, and scholars in her field of interest, she eventually reveals another reason for staying in “The Golden State.” She also provides insight into how she selected her areas of interest while attending her undergraduate and graduate schools. She attended Florida State University (FSU) as an undergraduate where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She then attended California State University, Fresno (CSUF) where she received her Master of Arts in Experimental Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy. Dr. Lench then attended the University of California, Irvine (UCI) where she received her Doctor of Philosophy in Social Psychology.
Dr. Lench shares how she ended up at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and how she grew through the ranks to become Professor and Department Head of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. TAMU offers an M.S. Program in Psychology with a concentration in Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology. TAMU also offers a Doctoral Program in Psychology with training in five areas of including Behavioral and Cellular Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology, Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience, I/O Psychology, Social and Personality Psychology.
In addition to being an accomplished teacher, mentor, and scholar, Dr. Lench is also the Director of, and Principle Investigator for, the Emotion Science Lab which conducts research based on the premise that emotions and “emotional processes are the foundation of cognition and behavior.” She and the Emotion Science Lab research team are currently investigating boredom and comparing those who respond positively to boredom with those who respond negatively in hopes of developing an intervention and techniques to help those who respond less effectively.
I found Dr. Lench refreshing, insightful, and full of helpful advice. She is focused on helping students interested in the field of psychology as she includes undergraduate and graduate students on her Emotion Science Lab Research Team. The Lab includes a student resources page to help those interested in finding general information and other resources related to psychology. The student resources page also includes resources to help those applying to graduate schools.
Connect with Dr. Heather Lench: LinkedIn
Connect with the Show: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter
Interests and Specializations
Dr. Lench is interested in learning how emotional processes impact behavior and thought. In particular, she assumes that emotions and emotional processes play an important role in the development of behavior and thought. As the principle investigator of the Emotion Science Lab, she and other researchers examine how and why affective responses and emotions impact people’s judgments and future behavior. They also study specific emotions and how they influence behavior and cognition. Much of her work would fall under the emerging field of affective science which takes a multidisciplinary approach bridging psychology, judgement and decision-making, and affective neuroscience using a variety of approaches and methods.
Education
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Psychology, Minor: English (1999); Florida State University.
Master of Arts (M.A.), Experimental Psychology, Marriage and Family Therapy (2001); California State University, Fresno.
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Social Psychology, Double Minor: Quantitative and Developmental (2007); University of California, Irvine.
Sources and Other Links of Interest
Heather C. Lench Ph.D. – Google Scholar
The Functions of Emotions – Heather C. Lench – Springer
Texas A&M Psychological and Brain Sciences – Twitter
Texas A&M Psychology – Facebook
Podcast Transcription
| Bradley (00:00:14) | Welcome to the Master’s in Psychology Podcast where psychology students can learn from psychologists, educators, and practitioners to better understand what they do, how they got there, and hear the advice they have for those interested in getting a master’s degree in psychology. I’m your host, Brad Schumacher, and today we welcome Dr. Heather Lench to the show. Dr. Lench is a Professor and Department Head of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University (TAMU). The Department offers a terminal master’s program with a concentration in Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology. The Department also offers a doctoral program with training in five key areas of psychology. Dr. Lench is also the Director and Principle Investigator for the Emotion Science Lab. Dr. Lench, welcome to our podcast. |
| Heather (00:01:04) | Thank you very much. It’s good to be here and with your audience. |
| Bradley (00:01:08) | Well, good, I am glad and excited to have you on the show. I’m looking forward to learning a little bit more about your history and your past as well as a little bit more about what you’re currently doing as Director and, as you know, your involvement in the Lab that we’ve talked about a little bit, so I’m looking forward to talking about all that. Before we get started though, for our audience, I’m going to give you the opportunity to just tell us a little bit more about yourself. |
| Heather (00:01:36) | OK, I was raised mostly in Florida and I’ve lived sort of all around the country at different points in my life. I’m currently located at Texas A&M University which is in College Station, TX kind of in the middle of the state and I am a professor, as you mentioned, in psychology and I’m what’s now known as an affective scientist. So, this is a pretty new interdisciplinary field that focuses on the study of emotion using a variety of approaches and methods. A lot of my work focuses on understanding emotions and how they influence people’s thinking and behavior. And, as you mentioned, I’m also the Department Head, which means I do a lot of the strategic planning and management for us. |
| Bradley (00:02:19) | Well, it sounds like you’re a little busy…keeping busy with all that stuff. So, thank you for that high level overview. You covered some of the things that I was actually going to cover if you didn’t mention them. But one thing that I wanted to share with the audience is, you know you’re involved in this Lab, and when I looked into the Lab a little bit, it sounds like the Lab was started back in 2006, I believe, when I go to that Alumni page. Tell me what the goal of the lab is, and we can kind of discuss that right from the get-go. |
| Heather (00:02:54) | Yeah, so it’s I guess I started the lab actually as a PhD student originally when I started working on independent projects on my dissertation, I wanted a way to organize a group of students to be involved on projects, and the Emotion Science Lab is how I did that, how I implemented it. So, we had a group that would come together. We would meet regularly and talk about ideas and studies that were going on, and then it’s just continued and evolved and grown from there. |
| Bradley (00:03:26) | So hopefully everybody can see this…the home page for your Emotion Science Lab… |
| Heather (00:03:33) | It was cold that day. |
| Bradley (00:03:35) | Was it? I was just gonna ask you what I had in my notes. I’m going by your…It’s almost like some of the people are shivering that day. So how long ago was this picture taken? |
| Heather (00:03:42) | Yeah…Ahh, let’s see, so that would have been only about a year and a half ago. |
| Bradley (00:03:49) | OK, all right. I was gonna say I’m in Minnesota, you’re in Texas, I can’t even imagine, you know, being cold but I did live there so I understand where you’re coming from. It does get a little bit chilly on certain days but yeah, thank you for that overview. It seems like, you know, most of this is a coordinated effort by both you and other investigators on the research team. And one of the other follow-up questions I had for you was, you know, when you look at the research team here, obviously it lists you as Principle Investigator, and then you have both doctoral and master’s students. How do you select the people that are going to be involved in the lab and/or those that are going to be on the research team? |
| Heather (00:04:35) | Ooh, that’s a great question. So, when I’m looking for Ph.D. students and master’s students, I’m really looking for students that are interested in emotion and also that are able to think sort of big picture about theories and ideas and translate that into methods that we can actually implement and use in the in the Department. When we’re looking for undergraduate students, who are usually research assistants in the lab, we’re looking for people who are, you know, the same thing that companies are looking for…we’re looking for people who are hungry, humble, and smart, right? So, people who are motivated, they want to be part of the group, they want to contribute to knowledge, and contribute to the lab. |
| Bradley (00:05:20) | Well, it sounds like you have a lot of people that are involved and, like I said, even on that website it even shows some of the former, you know, researchers that were involved in the, in the program as well. What are some of the key areas of interest that you guys are researching currently or going into the next school year? |
| Heather (00:05:40) | Um, so we have two, I guess, major projects going on right now. One is a book that’s eventually, that’s also going to translate into studies, and it’s looking at how different types of biases, including optimism about our romantic partners, support our relationships, right? So, we’re looking at whether being optimistic about your partner and having very positive views of your partner…if that helps relationships long term and helps people stay in relationships. And then the other bigger project that we’re working on is related to boredom, and this was partially inspired by the pandemic related shutdowns and we’re looking at trying to figure out what boredom is as an emotional state, so you know what does boredom motivate us to do, what types of behaviors are associated with boredom, and then we’re also trying to figure out what people do when they’re coping well with boredom, right? So, sometimes boredom, we respond to it quickly and effectively. Other times we get kind of trapped and we might become apathetic and disengaged. And so, we’re trying to figure out what people, what the coping strategies and approaches are that people are using when they use boredom to motivate them versus when they when boredom causes them to disengage and become apathetic. |
| Bradley (00:07:06) | Well, it’s all very interesting. I actually came across an article back in April in 2020 that actually cited you, or I’m not sure if they actually interviewed you for this, but it was the BBC Travel website… |
| Heather (00:07:19) | Yes. |
| Bradley (00:07:20) | …and if you remember that, I actually found that whole article interesting and I can share that on the screen as well, and I actually found it interesting because it talks about this prisoner of war that actually got involved with, let me see if I can find it here, right here, yeah, the prisoner of war back in 1942, who actually was a Mountaineer and actually saw this mountain that was just beyond the camp, and he basically came up with this idea of escaping and then climbing the mountain and then coming back, and actually, you know, coming back into that prisoner of war camp, and it kind of it was interesting to find out how he developed that and it took a long time to plan it. I’m taking a lot of your stuff away from you right now, but I just was so, I found it so interesting. So, tell me how you got involved in this…did they actually reach out to you or are they just citing some of your work? |
| Heather (00:08:26) | No, they reached out to talk about, to talk about the piece and I, I wasn’t familiar so, the, the writer of this piece wanted to, to focus on this prisoner of war and, and really explain, you know ,what motivated him to tackle this huge task, this big dream in a situation that, for most, for a lot of people, would have been completely demoralizing and people would have been traumatized and had difficulty focusing on anything you know, much less, a big dream, and so the, the writer contacted me to talk about, you know, if boredom, if the experience of boredom in a camp like that, could have played a part in inspiring this person to tackle this huge mountain. |
| Bradley (00:09:13) | And it was funny because you know those of you who have never climbed any mountains or are not a mountaineer, you need the equipment, you need everything to actually do that successfully, not only plan it and then have the resources, but I remember one part in here that he was focusing on, how he got the rope to actually use to climb. But I did reread, you know some of your quotes in here and it just came to mind because previously you were talking about how people, you know, deal with their boredom and, and here’s one of them is people will pay more to avoid boredom than other negative emotions like sadness and will pay as much to avoid boredom as they would to experience love. I found that fascinating. Somebody is so bored that they would pay to get out of that emotional state into another state. |
| Heather (00:10:03) | Yeah. And we think, of course we don’t have direct evidence of this, but we think that, you know, people talk about interest as the carrot that gets us out of the cave to go explore, right? You see something interesting and it motivates you to go explore. And we think that boredom might be kind of the stick equivalent of that, right? So, it’s kind of the painful stimuli that prompts us to go out and start exploring right? Because boredom is, it’s painful. |
| Bradley (00:10:33) | We’re experiencing it, even now I mean, a lot of people, I would rather do this interview in person, but we can’t do that. And you know, especially with the COVID and that was one of my questions I planned on asking you is how has COVID changed not only you personally, your lifestyle and your family, but you as a teacher, and a scholar, and a researcher, how has it changed over the past year since COVID came to the States? |
| Heather (00:10:59) | Yeah, well my personal life has been exhausting…so I have two young children and so, like a lot of people, I was suddenly home schooling and trying to work a full-time job and doing all the things I normally do. And then I’m like, like we were talking about earlier, I’m also Department Head and so, you know, part of my job was to try to translate these uncertain, ambiguous messages to our faculty and students in a way that they knew what to do and what not to do. And so, it’s been, it’s been a tough year. Teaching has been interesting, so I’ve been teaching our freshman orientation course and so this past fall I was teaching this course to students that had just come from high schools where in spring semester everything had flown out the window right, and so they, the students themselves were very disoriented and that’s always true for, for freshman on new campus, right? But it was heightened in this situation, so you know, I had to learn, and the students had to learn creative ways to connect and to try to help them make social groups and social connections in a way that’s really easy when you’re there in person and it’s so much harder, right, when everybody’s connected over Zoom or, or other platforms. It has inspired us in our, in my lab to do a lot of work on boredom, which I think has been a useful tract for us to pursue. We did one short study during the initial phases of the shutdown around the country to look at how people responding to boredom and what they viewed as effective and not effective. |
| Bradley (00:12:44) | Yeah, boredom has been a topic ever since COVID came in and, and how to overcome it, how to deal with it, and so I think you’re not alone in the in that camp, studying that. But it’s good. I mean, if you look at the upside of COVID, if there is one, is it forces us to look at these types of issues and how to study them and come up with ways to help not only, you know, for the general public, but also for those who are in the academic world as well so. |
| Heather (00:13:14) | I can say binge watching movies and eating where the two behaviors that people reported were the least helpful. |
| Bradley (00:13:21) | Really, you’d almost think that they would be more helpful. That’s interesting. |
| Heather (00:13:25) | They were common but not perceived as helpful. |
| Bradley (00:13:28) | OK, I read in some of the articles as well as others that binge shopping was another one to help. Now I’m not sure if that, like you just said, it’s a go to way to deal with it, I’m not sure if that was a good way to…have you found any of your studies saying that binge shopping is helpful? |
| Heather (00:13:49) | No one mentioned it specifically. There also were no mentions of drug or alcohol use, which I also found surprising because the evidence suggests that those rates have also been, been increasing. |
| Bradley (00:14:04) | Well, I have to be honest, if you asked me about that, those type of questions. I don’t know if I’d give up and let you know, hey, yeah, I like smoking or I like drinking. I’d probably keep that to myself. So that might be part of, part of the reason. |
| Heather (00:14:13) | Yeah, these were also people who are choosing to do a survey during the pandemic shutdown, so these might have been, this might have been a select population too, yeah? |
| Bradley (00:14:27) | Sure, yeah, definitely. So, I’m looking at your history and the road that you have taken to get to where you are now, and I did see that you received your Bachelor of Arts from Florida State University in psychology with an English minor. Do you remember back then what made you, kind of, combine those two? And why did you combine English with Psychology? |
| Heather (00:14:51) | Um, I was initially interested in being a fiction writer, so English was my, my first career goal and then I started taking more classes and I discovered that I liked writing. But what I really enjoyed was being able to ask and answer questions and I found out, by taking many different courses, that psychology was a good fit for doing that, right. So, we, we can ask and answer questions using scientific methods and then we also, you know, write a narrative in ways that aren’t necessarily true in disciplines like biology, where we’re telling a story of a theory and studies related to that theory, and then how our work fits in. |
| Bradley (00:15:36) | That sounds like a good fit for you then, based on your interests. The other thing that I wanted to ask and, and this is a tough question, do you remember what areas of study or theories you found most interesting back then as an undergraduate? Because it probably has changed and evolved throughout your career, but going back to your undergrad, do you remember any of the theories or areas of study that you found the most interesting? |
| Heather (00:16:01) | Yeah, I don’t, so I don’t think I read a lot of original work during that time, you know, I was reading textbooks and that sort of thing, but I, I did take, I was a research assistant in a lab that was studying insight where people are trying to work through a problem and then just suddenly right, they, they have the answer to that problem. And we were trying to figure out where that comes from in a way that’s not, that’s not accessible to people, right? So, you can’t say, oh, I was thinking about this and that reminded me of the other thing. Suddenly you just know the answer. And that idea was really fascinating to me at the time, right? That there are parts of our thinking and our decision-making that we don’t know about, right? And don’t have access to? |
| Bradley (00:16:50) | So, here’s the tough question. What did you find? |
| Heather (00:16:53) | I don’t know. I mean, I spent thousands of hours, you know, transcribing, think aloud protocols for the study, and I actually, I don’t know if it was ever published. It was a, I think it was a dissertation project for one of their clinical Ph.D. students that I was helping with. |
| Bradley (00:17:08) | OK, all right. I always like asking, I mean it was I, I’m not trying to age you or anything, but I don’t even remember some of the studies that I, I did years ago as well, but some of them, some of them tend to stick in your mind, whereas some others don’t. And so, I just wanted to give you that opportunity. At what point did you decide as an undergrad that, hey, I wanted to continue my schooling and go on for my master’s? And did it just kind of, you mentioned it just came to you for some of those studies, how did you decide to continue your education and why did you continue in psychology versus English? |
| Heather (00:17:45) | Yeah, I wish I could say that it was very thoughtful decision-making process, but I don’t remember it being that way. So, I, I had gotten involved in psychology in a research lab and I was enjoying that so, I knew that that was something that I wanted to keep doing and, and then I was ending, I was nearing the end of my college career, I was midway through senior year and I suddenly realized that I had to go somewhere after I graduated and do something right, and graduate school seemed like one option, and so I, I picked three programs that I was going to…three radically different programs…that I was going to apply to and, and see what happened. |
| Bradley (00:18:28) | And so, how did you? How did? Yeah, how did you end up going to California State University in Fresno for your master’s degree? You said you kind of picked out three of them. How did you decide on going there? |
| Heather (00:18:43) | Well, I wanted to learn how to surf and so I only applied to schools in California. I applied to one master’s program in experimental psychology, one Psy.D. Program, and one clinical Ph.D. program. I did not, I was not accepted with the clinical program. The Psy.D. program seemed like a long time to commit to any course of study and, and so the master’s program seemed like a great fit and then what really convinced me was actually a conversation that I had with the, my potential advisor there. So, you know, he contacted me pretty quickly and he was talking about ideas and theories that, that seemed really interesting and he was clearly a good mentor, right? He was somebody that wanted to engage with me and support me and so that, that really was the deciding factor. |
| Bradley (00:19:33) | Do you remember what he said that made you think about? Hey, yes, I should go forward with this program versus the other ones or…do you remember any of that? |
| Heather (00:19:43) | Part of it was that he engaged me as, not an equal, but as someone with ideas that potentially made a contribution, right? So, he engaged me as, as an intellectual right that he wanted to talk with me about these ideas. And then he was the, you know, the studies that he was thinking about just seemed really interesting, so he was studying his…Paul Price at CSU, Fresno…he was studying optimistic bias and how people, you know, think of that their futures are always going to be positive and good things will happen and bad things won’t and so that, the way that he thought about those ideas and talked to me about them was part of what attracted me to the program. |
| Bradley (00:20:26) | Well, it sounds like he’s very genuine and he really cared about you and other students as well and mentoring. I, you already answered this next question that I had, you stayed in California because after you finished your master’s degree, you went on to University of California, Irvine and I wanted to ask you…tell us why you stayed, you already answered part of that…you wanted to learn to surf…any other reasons why you stayed in the State of California? |
| Heather (00:20:49) | Well, I discovered Fresno is pretty far from the surfing actually. |
| Bradley (00:20:49) | Sure. |
| Heather (00:20:55) | So, Irvine was, was a little was closer. |
| Bradley (00:20:57) | Closer…yeah. |
| Heather (00:20:57) | And closer in that direction. So that that was part of it. And, and then the, you know the, the programs in the UC system are fantastic across the board and what I really liked about Irvine was that it’s, it was formed in the 1970s with a lot of focus on interdisciplinary work and community-based action um, and that, that was true of the Psychology Department as well, and so it was this program that reached out across areas, across disciplines, and was trying to deal with, you know, issues that were important to society and so that, that was really attractive. And, again, I was contacted by my potential advisor there who went out of her way to connect with me and talk to me and engage me. |
| Bradley (00:21:49) | It sounds like it really came down to two or three, or maybe a handful of people, that kind of guided you and brought you through your academic career and, and I understand what you’re saying, because if you feel validated, heard, understood and, like you said, not necessarily treated as an equal, because obviously they, they have more of the experience and more of the degrees, but welcoming you into their, their group is, is the sense that I’m getting from you? |
| Heather (00:22:19) | Yep. |
| Bradley (00:22:21) | So, looking back at both your master’s and your doctorate, what were some of the most important factors that you had to consider other than the, the one-on- one and those mentors you know reaching out to you, what was important to you when you were selecting a master’s and doctorate program? |
| Heather (00:22:39) | Um, so one of the things that was important is that I could see a fit between myself and the program. So not just the one or two people that I was going to work with, but also in the, the, overall focus of the courses, the program of study that I would be entering um, and then also that there were more than one person that I was interested in, in what they were doing so it, both of those programs, there were multiple people that I enjoy talking to, and like I was interested in their ideas and their, and their programs. |
| Bradley (00:23:17) | OK, I’m seeing a theme when I’m talking to other people, not only in California, but across the board, they need to have that fit and it needs to feel right and so along with that, what advice would you offer any of those who are seeking a master’s or doctorate degree in psychology…any general advice that you’d have for them? |
| Heather (00:23:44) | Well, I guess one piece of advice is that there are a lot of different paths to the same end. So often when people are nearing the end of their undergraduate studies, they feel like they have to make a choice on their career or their program and it’s the, the most important choice they ever make, and they can never change their mind once they commit. But that’s not true, right? So, people change careers, they can change their mind, they can change programs at any point, and so it is an important decision, but there are lots of ways to get to an outcome right in point. Um, and then I guess the, the other piece of advice is that when you are looking for programs that you are looking for fit, right? So, you’re committing to this program for multiple years…at least 18 months and sometimes, you know 7-8 years at a time, and so you want to make sure that it is a fit for what you want and, and your values and, and a place that you would want to be for multiple years. |
| Bradley (00:24:48) | Yeah, and, and in your case you weren’t quite ready for that long term, you know, going directly into a Ph.D. program versus going into a master’s program that allowed you to figure out if this is a good fit for you, and then if you wanted to continue, versus some people do start with their Ph.D. right from undergrad and that’s a longer-term commitment versus going into a master’s program and then deciding to continue as well so I’m glad you brought that up because a lot of people just think, oh I have to go master’s and then I have to go Ph.D. and they view them as separate and that, that is true, however, you can go right into the, the Ph.D. program, but again, that’s a, it’s a longer commitment and you have to make sure that you fit well with the program and the people. Other people that I’ve had on the, on the show as well, Dr. Lench, have said similar things in terms of the fit and find more than just one faculty member or advisor because if that faculty member advisor leaves or retires or does something else, then where are you? You know, you have to have multiple people to go to. |
| Heather (00:25:56) | Yeah, and actually half of the students in my lab, the Ph.D. students transferred to my labs from other advisors. Sometimes the advisor left and went to another University. Sometimes there just wasn’t a good fit between the advisor and the mentee, and they ended up, they had very different expectations about how they would work together, and the types of projects that they would work on, and the relationship, in the end, didn’t end up being productive for anybody. |
| Bradley (00:26:29) | Ahh, you’re being modest. They probably all just switched to you because they loved having you in the science lab and being a mentor come on! |
| Heather (00:26:38) | Well, they have all stayed, so I think that’s a good, that’s a good sign. |
| Bradley (00:26:41) | That is a very good sign. I wanted to ask one other question about, you know, we talked about your English as well as psychology when you actually went on for your doctorate, you actually had a different combination…you had social psychology with a quantitative minor and a developmental minor. Again, I always ask this question because we have prospective students that ask all the time “How do you decide on your major, you know, your majors and your minors, and if you should double minor or what you should do, so if you can kind of remember back when you were going through your doctorate, how did you come up with that combination of, basically the double minor…quantitative minor and developmental minor? |
| Heather (00:27:27) | I really was pursuing what was interesting to me so, you know, when I talked to people who were in the social psychology world, they were talking about, you know how people are influenced by their inner and outer context, right? And how that changes people’s behaviors and their thoughts? And that was a really good fit for how I thought about people. Um, and then I also started working with a, a cognitive psychologist, and developmental psychologist, and a social psychologist. And, so I, as part of that work with them, I also started taking some classes in those areas which eventually turned into a minor. I took, so, you know, I talked to a lot of professors as well in my role and something similar actually happens at that stage to where people, when they start their tenure track jobs, a lot of times they’re, they’re doing studies and, this happens during grad school too, they’re doing studies, and they don’t really see a connection between all the studies that they’re doing. They don’t see the big picture, and then, at some point they are able to take a step back and they are able to say, ah, I study functions of emotions, or ah, you know, I study cognitive biases and neural underpinnings. But sometimes it takes a while to get that, you are doing the things that are interesting and that culminates in, you know, this bigger picture contribution. But sometimes it takes a while to see it. |
| Bradley (00:28:56) | And I can relate with what you’re saying, because when I was doing all the studies that I, I was just so micro focused on, OK, I have to look at these parameters, I have to look at the tests and I have to look at the results and then you do another one, and another one and then, all of a sudden, somebody from the outside says oh, it looks like you’re interested in this area. Yeah, I guess you’re right. |
| Heather (00:29:18) | Since I’ve been doing this for three years, that must be true. |
| Bradley (00:29:21) | Right, right? And then it kind of dawns on you. And, and then you kind of have this ah ha moment and then Oh yeah, and then it almost helps guide you for, you know, future studies as well, because anything that relates to that. I did see that you, well, now you’re at Texas A&M. So, as I said at the beginning, and now you’re at Texas A&M University…tell us how you ended up at Texas, because you, you wanted to stay in California and learn to surf, you weren’t quite there, but you, you switched, so how did you end up in Texas? |
| Heather (00:29:54) | Well, I did learn how to surf so I was ready to pull out after that. Well, so I, I went on the job market near the end of my, my Ph.D. training and I was looking at a lot of different places within this country and a few other countries as well. So, I cast a pretty wide net, um I had been through Texas once before and I had this stereotype that it was full of desert and tumbleweeds and um that’s true for part of it, but I was pleasantly surprised that this was a really green area. I found the people to be really engaging in the Department, in the community, and I, I just loved the, the collegiality here in the Department, you know they’re an intellectually engaged group that support each other, and so that was a big part of my decision to come here. |
| Bradley (00:30:49) | OK, I can relate as we were talking before, we started the program and the show I finished my undergrad, I mean my master’s at the University of North Texas and I found the same thing. Very small college. Everybody was close-knit, very casual, very helpful. And it was outside of Dallas, so you could, if you needed to get to the big city, you weren’t too far away. But yeah, I found the same thing, although the one thing I should admit, Heather, is during Christmas, my first Christmas there coming from the Midwest, it was so strange seeing some Christmas ornaments out on green lawns…I’m going, this is wrong… |
| Heather (00:31:30) | Very different. |
| Bradley (00:31:32) | …You have to have snow. |
| Heather (00:31:33) | We did have snow a week ago though…actually. |
| Bradley (00:31:35) | Did you really, OK? |
| Heather (00:31:38) | So, it does happen. |
| Bradley (00:31:38) | I did, yeah. I remember having snow and ice, there was an ice storm when I was finishing my master’s when the Dallas Cowboys went to the Super Bowl and even though everybody down there has trucks, they don’t know how to drive on the ice. And I’m sorry for making that statement, but I that’s what I saw in my personal experience so. Now it appears you’ve been the Department head since 2016. Tell us a little bit more about how you decided to become…first, you were an Associate Head of the Department and then you became the Department Head, tell us how you decided to go that route. |
| Heather (00:32:15) | And it was not ever anything that I had planned, so I had never dreamed of taking on an administrative role of any kind. But the Department Head before me asked if I would be interested in doing it, and I was kind of curious about how things worked in the Department and the University on a day-to-day basis, you know how decisions are made, who’s doing what, and so I decided to take it on. I would only sign on for one year maximum and he had to promise that I could leave at any time. Ah, because I wasn’t sure that this would be a good fit, but I actually discovered that I liked helping people accomplish things and setting a direction for our faculty and for our students where they could be successful over time. Um, and so I agreed to be just, to become Department Head and then stay as Department Head. Um, to do that work to help support the people in the Department. And I really enjoyed it…actually. |
| Bradley (00:33:22) | Well, I was going to say you obviously are enjoying it because I have some other information here to share with all of our audience members. You’ve been the Department Head, you were actually voted on another group of people, I think, as I recall, there were six people in this, so this is about a year and a half ago and you were voted as a Department Head Development Fellow, and that included six people, Department Heads, to come together, and as I recall, based on my research, the goal of that group was to help develop further curriculum and other programs. Am I remembering correctly…can you tell me a little bit more about that? |
| Heather (00:33:58) | Yeah, and so it was a program that was started by our, our Dean of Faculties and they wanted to try to help develop leaders on campus, right? Because that’s not necessarily anything that any of us learned in our research training, in our graduate programs, and often people are just kind of thrown into those roles and they’re suddenly expected to be leaders of, sometimes really large groups of people, and, and so the, the aim of this program was to bring together a group of experienced Heads that, at least, people perceived know what they’re doing on campus, and to try to figure out, you know, how do we develop leaders on campus? What kind of resources do leaders need so they can be effective? Um, and then, what are the priority areas for the University to work with these leaders? |
| Bradley (00:34:57) | Well, it, it sounds like you really enjoy helping people out. As you said, I, I’m looking at some of your other honors and awards. You were, you received an award “Scholar in Happiness, Virtue, and Meaning of Life Project” a couple years ago. You also received the Texas A&M University Faculty Merit Award, and this is “awarded to faculty who have demonstrated an exceptionally strong contribution to research” in that, for that particular year, and then you received the APA New Investigator Award in Experimental Psychology some time ago as well. And then I already mentioned the BBC Travel, some other media presentations, and then you’re still actively involved, based on your Vita, still actively involved in teaching, mentorship, and, you know, obviously the scholarly contributions to the field as well. So, out of all those, here’s the tough question, what do you enjoy the most? Or I guess it may change day by day? And maybe you’re coming in, oh my gosh, I, I’d rather do some research now instead of doing this, this role, so that’s the tough question, what do you, what do you enjoy the most? |
| Heather (00:36:09) | I don’t think I can separate what I enjoy the most in the area of my life and there’s a lot of integration across areas too, for me personally. Um, but probably the, the type of project that I like the most is something…that occurs over time, takes a lot of effort, and has a big impact. Um, and so that could be, you know, a really intense research project that gives us an answer that’s important in, in my area of study, right? Something that has a big impact in the end. Um, it could be, you know, teaching a class that goes on where students are 100% placed in careers after graduate programs after graduation or it could be developing a new program within the Department that will last the next 20 years and help students and, and faculty too. So really, anything like that is the fun, fun part for me? |
| Bradley (00:37:11) | And I’d also probably guess that seeing some of your students who you’re mentoring flourish throughout the year and, and seeing their, their skill set increase and, and become more improved on whether it’s on the research side or the analytical side, the quantitative analysis, anything like that. I was a teacher for years and I loved seeing my students kind of flourish and, and get that light bulb and then just, you know, take off. So as a fellow teacher, I, I love seeing that in the students as well. |
| Heather (00:37:48) | Yeah, yep, and I love it when they report back on all the wonderful things that they’re, that they’re doing and enjoying in their in their careers too, yeah? |
| Bradley (00:37:56) | Right. Now, as Department head, I did notice that the Department changed its name. It used to be just the Department of Psychology to Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in 2017. Can you tell us a little bit more about what prompted that change and why the change? |
| Heather (00:38:15) | Yeah, and so part of it was a, a change that we perceived had been going on in the discipline for a while, including in our Department, right, to include more neuroscience methods. So, at one point most neuroscience was done with animal models and now we have all these noninvasive imaging approaches where we can, we can look at the function and structure of the brain in people, sometimes in real time, right, and so, neuroscience methods really have become integral to the study of human behavior in any specific program area, and so part of the change was to recognize that shift in an official way. Um, and you see this in textbooks too, right? So, if you look at the first three chapters of almost any intro to psych textbook, one of those first three is now the brain. Because you have to understand that to understand anything else. And then the other part of this was really about perceptions. So, when people hear psychology, but who aren’t familiar with the area, not trained in it, a lot of people still think of laying on the couch and talking about your mother, right? That’s still kind of the, the stereotype, and so part of the, the name change was to make it really clear that, you know, yes, we, we include clinical psychology and clinical science. Yes, you know that all of these aspects are still important, but psychology is a lot broader right then, that very specific area, and it includes people who are studying, you know, the workplace and includes people that are studying the brain, and so the idea was to, by changing our name, to broaden the definition of our science to reflect what we really do. |
| Bradley (00:40:01) | Yeah, I actually like that more and more programs are doing that, and more and more departments are doing that as well. It’s, it’s beneficial because it be it, it becomes where this intersect happens between what we used to think, as just neurological, you know, sciences and now you can combine it and a lot of people that I’ve talked to are seeing those in real time as well using the, the new ways of looking at the brain and parts of the brain, especially for your aspect of the emotion and the affect, where does that actually happen in the brain? And does that turn on or off depending on what you’re seeing, viewing, or talking about, it’s, it’s all very interesting to me. Anything with the brain is, is very interesting to me, so it’s, I like seeing how these are intertwined as well. So, I’m going to give a couple moments here to talk about, as I mentioned earlier, your Department has a terminal master’s degree program and a doctoral program. Let’s take a quick look at this. I’m going to go ahead and share my screen and I’m going to bring up the main page for your Master of Science in Psychological Sciences with a concentration in Industrial/Organizational (I/O). And let me bring that up real quick, and we’ll see what’s nice about this is, I love this website, it gives you kind of an overview of what, what this program is and what the concentration is. Were you involved, or do you have any idea why you guys have selected the concentration of Industrial/Organizational as part of this program? |
| Heather (00:41:38) | Yeah, I was involved, so I guess there are a couple of reasons that we selected this. One is that it was an existing strength within our Department so there, I/O psychology is not, there aren’t very many large research-oriented Department’s that have an I/O, a strong I/O faculty core and we were lucky enough to have strong I/O faculty in our Department already. And then we also, you know, were looking at some of the statistics, um on, right, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on areas of anticipated growth, and I/O psychology was identified as one of those, and as we saw that and then we started talking to our students in our, in our bachelor’s programs, we found out that a lot of those students were also interested in I/O psychology and in the workplace, and so it seemed like this really great match, right, between the, the strengths and expertise that we had present and a real need out there in the world and personally, as with all the COVID related issues, I’ve become convinced that, that work, right, to understand how employees function and how to make them happy and satisfied and productive is probably more important than ever, so I, I think we probably need more I/O psychologists out there. |
| Bradley (00:43:09) | Well, it’s actually flourishing, on the website, when we talked about certain programs in certain areas to focus on, we did find that it was a growing area as well so I’m glad that you’re reflecting that. Not all programs actually have that yet, as an option or an area of psychology that they’re focusing on and I, I did say that you have a doctoral program in psychology as well, and I mentioned that you have five key areas of psychology. I’m going to share the screen again and show the main website for your doctoral program and everybody can actually see on here…this is another good website because it gives a little bit more about what your goal is for that doctoral student and the objectives that you have laid out for them. As well as, you know, the ratio of student to faculty, I liked seeing that. And then, of course, these five key areas, in addition to some of these other areas down here. So, here’s your, here’s your chance to kind of talk up your doctoral program and, and tell us what your goal is here for doctoral students coming into Texas A&M. |
| Heather (00:44:20) | We’re a great program, you should apply. |
| Bradley (00:44:23) | Easy enough, that’s great. |
| Heather (00:44:25) | Yeah, yeah. So, the objectives for all of our areas within the Ph.D. program are to foster students as independent scientists, right? So, by the time that students leave our program, they should be able to ask and answer questions about human behavior and they should be able to, to develop solutions, right, so practical solutions, for real world problems based on science and scientific understanding. So that’s our, our overall goal. As you mentioned, the student faculty ratio is fairly low, so it’s about two students to every faculty member. Um, and that seems to be about the right ratio where there’s a strong cohort of students and there are students in the lab where they can talk to one another about findings and methods, so it creates a good community but there still enough time, right, for each faculty member, each advisor, to really mentor those students, and to give them the individual attention that they need and the feedback that they need. Um, we do have five areas of study, Behavioral and Cellular Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology (which is an accredited program through APA), Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and Social and Personality Psychology. Um, so we do award degrees in each of those areas, and then, as it says below, we have some several cross-area research and training clusters that have, they emerged organically within the Department and then we put a name to them a few years ago, where we recognize that these are existing areas of strengths and also areas where we really want to grow and develop. So that’s Affective Science (the study of emotion), Diversity Science (so the study of diverse groups, identities, and populations), um, and then Personality Processes that operate within a person and influence how we interact with, with others and with our environment. And so, you know, the nice thing about these research and training clusters is that it really is cross area which gives students a chance to not only, you know, become experts in their specific area of study, but also to connect that with other disciplines, other areas and make broader connections and learn to be part of a bigger collaborative team, which seems to be the way that that science is going, right, the ability to work on these big collaborative teams to address, you know, big problems, is that a skill that our students need develop, need to develop now. |
| Bradley (00:47:10) | Yeah, I agree with you…everything you said. I wanted to highlight for everybody who is either watching the podcast or listening to the podcast, this website on their doctoral program also highlights that they provide and may provide a fellowship or assistantship that pays a salary. I remember when I was going through my undergrad or doctoral program, yeah, you either became a research assistant at TA, and you would get a stipend, basically, and so I was glad to see that you did offer some, some money, some stipend, if you call it stipend in your terms, for people that are going through that program because that does help offset the cost of the program as well. |
| Heather (00:47:55) | Yeah, we do, you know, as much as possible, we do want students in the program concentrating on their work and their studies, and so you know, we provide that stipend so they can live decently well while they’re studying. |
| Bradley (00:48:13) | The other thing that I wanted to highlight I’m going, I’m switching back to the lab now because here we’re focused on helping prospective students, and whether you’re a master’s student or a doctoral student, how can we help them and, and your Emotion Science Lab actually has a dedicated student resources page that actually focuses on, hey, here are some things that we have available for you to look at and I’m sharing that on the screen with you right now…hopefully you see it…and this is the Emotion Science lab Student Resources page. And for those who are listening, they have different areas. One is Finding General Information and other one is Societies and Organizations and then Statistical and Methodological Resources, and Applying to Academic Positions and then, of course, Applying to Graduate Schools and then some Specific Programs. So, I like seeing all these resources here. We at, at our website love to that’s, that’s all we’re doing is providing as much resource, resources as possible to help that prospective student. Tell me a little bit more about, you know, the goal of this portion of the website or this web page of your Emotion Science Lab, and I noticed that there’s a login feature. So, tell me what I’m missing that I can’t see when I’m not logged in. |
| Heather (00:49:33) | Well, I’ll do the login feature first because that’s pretty easy. We use the website, there’s a hidden portion that’s a blog, where any of the students who are research assistants in the Lab can communicate what they’re doing and sometimes post pictures of their pets or whatever, right? And so, it’s used for internal communication, is the part that you can’t see. Um, and then this, this website really grew out of the students who are involved in the lab, so they started finding resources and things that were useful to them as they were trying to figure out, you know, how to navigate this really complicated process of identifying programs and applying to them um and we felt like, you know, people are doing all of this work to find all this great information, and then it, it kind of gets lost over time, right? And, so we, we developed the website to try to pull some of that information together. So that when people found helpful resources, we could keep them and make them available for students in the lab and also anybody who happens to Google the website. |
| Bradley (00:50:38) | Right and what I also liked about it is you provided some statistics calculators, some other calculators in there, and then of course links to the APA and Society for Personality and Social Psychology (or SPSP). Um I, I love seeing all this so I, I applaud you for, for putting this together and I, I was going to say you, but it’s, it’s the students as well for putting this together because it’s a wonderful resource for all of the prospective students and current students as well so. |
| Heather (00:51:09) | Thank you, yeah. |
| Bradley (00:51:11) | One of the other things that I did notice is you guys have Facebook and Twitter and what I mean by “you guys” is the Department, not you personally, well you do, but as the Department, you have Facebook and Twitter on here and I’m going to go ahead and share the screen on that as well. And the reason I wanted to is there are some interesting, ahh, portions, so I’m going to go to the Twitter account first and here is the Texas A&M Psychological and Brain Sciences. You have a good number of followers, but what’s nice about this is this is a good way for prospective students who may be interested in your program, or the Department, to kind of see what fellow doctors and other faculty and staff are up to because they do share a lot on the Twitter page as well. And then, of course, you have the Facebook page and I like this, this logo up top facing each other and, and Texas A&M Psychology. And the one that was in here the, the top one was from April, and this is actually related to some of your studies during the COVID and then that kind of related to what we talked about earlier with the BBC Travel information as well. So, anything you’d like to say about either one of these social media websites for the Department? |
| Heather (00:52:39) | Just that they are great ways to learn about the Department. I, I run the Twitter account so anything there is probably my fault, but the, the Facebook page is actually run by two of our students every semester, so they’re psychology majors who look for interesting stories and interesting facts that they can share that they think might be helpful for other psychology majors, and so they’ve done some really interesting pieces on, you know, taking final exams and dealing with stress to, you know, how to identify a graduate program or a mentor, and then sometimes more specific things like what is Play Therapy, right, and how, how do you become certified to do Play Therapy. So, it, you know, they offer that student perspective, which I think is really, I think that’s where students often get the best information, right, is from other psychology majors. |
| Bradley (00:53:35) | Yep, I agree. I agree, if they have another colleague another equal, sharing some information and helpful tips that it goes a long way. Here is where you, alluded to earlier that you did receive some snow, so here it is. Here’s the snow. Here’s the proof. You weren’t lying, it’s right on the website, so that’s interesting. Yeah, when I was there, we didn’t even get that much. So, this is kind of a lot compared to what I experienced when I was in Texas. So, you know… |
| Heather (00:54:01) | It’s the most I’ve ever seen here. |
| Bradley (00:54:05) | The other thing that I wanted to highlight was I, I looked at your early research and then how it evolved throughout the years to what you’re currently studying, and you know, anywhere from, you know, optimistic expectations and the benefits for, you know, the effort. I think one of your more current ones, more recent ones, was looking at those expectations and how they have benefits for effort and emotion with little costs. You had another study that was “Predicted and remembered emotion: Tomorrow’s vividness trumps yesterday’s accuracy.” I’m going to say it one more time for our audience. One of the articles was “Predicted and remembered emotion: Tomorrow’s vividness trumps yesterday’s accuracy.” Can you share a little bit about what that study was about and what you found? |
| Heather (00:54:53) | Yeah, and so that was looking at people’s experiences during the 2016 presidential election, which is why “trump” appears in the title for this. Um, and it was looking at people’s ability to connect overtime with their own emotional responses, right? So, we, we have, we make predictions about how we’re going to feel in the future when events happen? We have emotions when the events happen, and then we also remember our emotions from past events. Um, and our hypothesis in that study was that when people think about the future, that it would actually be a lot more vivid than when they’re thinking about the past, right? And the, the reason for that, we thought, was that when you’re making predictions, you’re using that to guide your decision-making, um, and so that make should make your emotional responses to the future more, more vivid. You can better imagine, right, what what’s going to happen in the future and your emotional response should be more intense than when you’re thinking about something in the past where you can’t really do anything, right, there’s no decision to be made about the past, it’s already happened, um, and that is what we found in that study. |
| Bradley (00:56:19) | Well, it’s interesting I, I’ve talked to some other professors about recall and, you know, what you’re remembering in the past is literally recall, and it’s not that important to you because it’s in the past, I don’t need to worry about it, and now I’m focused on the future. So, it kind of goes along the same lines of what you were looking at in that study as well. One last thing, before I switch gears and talk about your grant writing. A lot of people don’t look at that as professors, especially new professors. Different research institutions have different emphasis on whether or not you’re going to be expected to do grant writing, and so before I ask some, one or two questions about that, I wanted to share with the audience that if you’re not aware and you’re really interested about an advisor, or a mentor, or a professor at a particular college, go ahead and go to scholar.google.com and if the, if the professor is involved with the Google Scholar and they have an account, you can see what they have been studying and then what they’re currently interested in, and so that’s another way to kind of do your research before reaching out to prospective professors. Any other advice that you’d have for, you know, undergrads or master’s degree students who are looking for either a master’s program or a doctoral program, and they want to find that connection and fit in with this same type of areas that they’re interested in? |
| Heather (00:57:45) | Um, well, I think like you said, right? Looking at people’s work is, is critical um, and you wanna make sure that they’re doing work that you’re, if you’re interested in research right, there, the potential advisor is doing work that you’re interested in the ideas and you’re also interested in the way the studies are done right? Because you’re going to be doing both, right? So, you’re going to be involved in generating ideas and writing about them, and you’re also going to be involved in the day-to-day activity of collecting the data, and so you just wanna check that both of those are things that that you enjoy doing. So just as an example, if you’re doing some kind of physiological data collection, you’re going to spend a lot of time cleaning data and dealing with the data before you can even look at it right. And so, you just want to make sure that that is a good, also a good fit, right, to your, your interests and your personality. Um, and it’s amazing how far a little bit of knowledge about someone’s work can go, right? So even just knowing some of the ideas that they use or something about the methods can be really helpful to interviewing with that person. And it gives you a starting point for the conversation and shows that, that you did your research ahead of time, right? You did look at, at what they do and that’s, that’s so much more effective during an interview than just asking what they’re working on right now is if you can say, you know, I know you do work on emotions or boredom. You know what? What are you working on right now, right? That’s, that’s a great approach for interview. |
| Bradley (00:59:26) | Yep, I agree. The other thing that I’d add to that too is check their website and check their personal profile to find out if they’re even accepting new students for that academic year. I’ve seen some students reach out and say I’m really interested in this and I really have narrowed it down to these three or four people. Two of them are at the same university and then they are disappointed when they find out that you know one of them is not even accepting new students for that academic year. So do your research and, and find that out as well. I’m not saying you shouldn’t reach out to that person and just say, hey, Dr. Lench, I’m really interested in your research and your methodology. I see that you’re not accepting students. Do you have any recommendations for me on how I might find somebody else within your program or at the school? So just for example, off the top of my head, another way to utilize that. So, let’s get to grant writing. Like I mentioned, a lot of people, graduate students, and even early professors don’t really think about this ahead of time. I see that you’ve been so successful in grant writing. You have a lot of grants awarded to you from NSF and a couple local grants with Texas A&M as well. What advice would you give for professors earlier in their career who have little or no experience writing grants? |
| Heather (01:00:46) | Um, to be proactive about finding a mentor with a lot of experience with writing grants it’s a different…so during Graduate School, you know we’re taught to look at findings and then write about those findings, so we have lots of practice with that skill. But in a grant, you’re writing almost as if you already have your findings, but you don’t, right, so you you’re projecting in the future about possible findings that you could have, and that’s a very different skill set that does take some development. And so, I would say, you know, finding a mentor who can talk to you about your ideas and then also is willing, or it could be a different mentor, but willing to look at, you know, drafts of your, of your grant proposal and your, your aims and your scope to give feedback. And it’s also great if that person has served on a review panel a few times, because then they have kind of the insider’s perspective on how reviewers of the grants will look at the proposals. |
| Bradley (01:01:50) | Yeah, great advice. I agree with you. The other thing that I found is…it has evolved, grant writing’s evolved into almost fine tuning and the organizations that offer these grants have increased and stepped up in giving you more specifics and particulars, whereas, back in the day, it was just, hey, submit this and include A, B, and C. Now they’re actually asking for more particular specific information, so, obviously, go out to that source and find out what their recommendations are about submitting the grant as well. If you don’t look at that and you submit something that you think is A+ and it’s right on, but it’s missing three or four of those different areas, and they’re going to reject it almost right away. You have to fulfill all of those requirements, wouldn’t you say? |
| Heather (01:02:42) | I would say that. Um, sometimes getting grant or applying for grants can seem almost like a game to people, right? Like if you say the right things and that then they’ll be excited about your project and that, and that’s actually a mistake that I made early on as I was trying to develop the ideas that I thought would be attractive to the funding agency. And, and I, I think it came across pretty clearly that I was not particularly interested in these ideas, right? And so, when I started having success with grants was actually when I started putting in proposals for projects that I was really interested in finding out the answer to the question that was being posed. And so, I think that’s a…so you definitely want to follow all of the guidelines and the rules. But I think that you know, identifying a project that you are enthusiastic about is also a really critical part of, of being successful. |
| Bradley (01:03:37) | And many of the grants, to tag along with that, is they are looking how is this impactful and is it really making a contribution? And if you can’t answer those then you have to kind of restructure how you’re framing the grant and how you’re applying or, or pick another, you know, area or study to apply for so very good advice. Thank you for sharing that. I just have…I want to bring up on the screen one of your recent books that you were involved in and you actually had, you are the editor for this book recently, a year and a half two years ago, and I’ll go ahead and share my screen for those who are not viewing but just listening, I’m bringing up one of her books that she was an editor for, and it’s called “The Function of Emotions: When and Why Emotions Help Us” again “The Functions of Emotions: When and Why Emotions Help Us.” I actually like this book when I looked at the table of contents you, of course, have the, the beginning “What Do Emotions Do for Us?” and then a lot of other professors and scholars have different chapters in there as well. And then you wrote the final chapter “The Emotional Toolkit: Lessons from the Science of Emotion.” Tell us how you got involved in this project and what did you learn from this…and, and I assume that you enjoyed it and you want to do more. |
| Heather (01:04:53) | Yeah, um, I did really enjoy this this book, um? I so I was approached by, by an agent that worked for, for Springer, for a publisher about potentially putting a book together on emotions and this just seems like a great opportunity to gather together scholars who are all working on how, on the question of how emotions are beneficial, right? How they help people and generate some conversations across authors on the functions of emotion and then it worked, turned out, in this case, beautifully because they each wrote about the function of a different emotion and showed ways that emotions, like jealousy or anger, are useful for people and also some of the ways that they, they are harmful for people. But most of the focus was on, you know, what emotions help us do in our lives. Yeah, and it was a fun process…lot of work. |
| Bradley (01:06:12) | Well, good I, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot there and all of a sudden, oh, I had a bad experience. I didn’t want that to happen I, I thought I was safe looking at your nonverbals, so that’s good. I’m glad that I. |
| Heather (01:06:18) | Yeah. |
| Bradley (01:06:27) | One last thing that I wanted to kind of bring up I, I alluded to this earlier that I saw some of the changes in your areas of interest throughout the years. In your own words, how has your area, how have your areas of interest changed throughout your career? |
| Heather (01:06:44) | Um, I think, you know, a little bit like we were talking about earlier, I was one of those people that was, I was doing studies that I found interesting, but I didn’t have a higher order picture of what I was doing or what I was interested in. So clearly, I was interested because I was doing the studies right, but I didn’t have that concept of exactly what the, the bigger question was that all of these studies addressed. Um, and so, I guess one thing that has changed in my work is that, you know, the, at some point it became very clear to me that I’m interested in emotions and how they relate to people’s thoughts and behaviors, with the assumption that emotions are foundational, right? That they, they are the start of all of our other cognitive and behavioral processes, and so once that bigger question solidified for me, it helped me, helped guide my research program in a more strategic direction and so that I could identify studies that I definitely wanted to pursue because they relate to that larger question. The studies that I maybe, yes, that’s interesting, but it’s not really central to the to the work that I do. So that was, I think, a turning point for my, my program. |
| Bradley (01:08:01) | Another realization of limiting what you’re interested in so you can focus on certain areas. So yeah, good advice. I have another question regarding your plans and goals for the future. I mean, we talked about your current research interests, how it’s changed throughout the years. What are some of your plans for the future? |
| Heather (01:08:22) | Um, well, so right now we’re trying to figure out boredom. And then I think that will open up a lot of doors for us. Um, so we know from other investigations that people that experience boredom frequently experience a lot of bad outcomes. So, they have higher rates of mortality, they’re more likely to have car accidents, they drop out of school more, they use drugs and alcohol, more right? So, a lot of sort of bad things happen to people who get bored more often and we don’t think that that’s something about the experience of boredom itself. We think it is more about how people are responding to boredom, right? So, we think some people respond very quickly and effect, effectively to boredom, so they feel boredom and right away they reorient towards something else that’s interesting and that they can engage with an we think other people are less effective at dealing with boredom, so they feel boredom and they can’t get out of it, they can’t identify a solution. And so, we’re trying to figure out what the differences are between those people and how they’re responding and the long term we would like to develop an intervention to work with people who are not responding effectively and help them learn some of those techniques, whatever they might be. |
| Bradley (01:09:39) | The other thing that I always thought, especially during the COVID, is have we seen a rise in rates of depression? And how people are who normally wouldn’t be depressed now find themselves depressed and (a) do they recognize that they’re depressed? Because if they don’t, then it’s, it’s hard for them to kind of deal with it as well. So very interesting I, I’m looking at your history a little bit. We already talked about that one study about “tomorrow’s vividness trumps yesterday’s accuracy.” The one before that, I actually found interesting, based on my research in the past, “A meta-analysis of the facial feedback literature: Effects of facial feedback on emotional experience are small and variable” and that was about a year, year and a half ago when it was published. And so, I found that one…that was published in the Psychological Bulletin, and so I always found anything dealing with the facial feedback as well. I alluded to your nonverbals earlier, that’s kind of the, the way that I went that route, yes. |
| Heather (01:10:44) | Thank you, yes. |
| Bradley (01:10:47) | I have some final fun questions that I usually ask everybody and the reason that I do this is as we grow, more and more interviews, and, and talk to psychologists, psychiatrists, and in private practice, we, we get their opinions on these last two or three, and we’re going to kind of combine them and see, kind of an informal study of, OK, all of these professors are saying this, you know, but these private practice people, I don’t know, they’re saying something different, so that’s my overall goal is to kind of ask these three questions and then kind of look at it retrospectively, so the first fun question is “what is your favorite term, principle, or theory and why?” |
| Heather (01:11:32) | Oh, my favorite, one favorite. |
| Bradley (01:11:36) | You can have more than that. I’m not limiting to you. |
| Heather (01:11:38) | OK, I’ll pick one, probably Systems Theory, which is the big theory and approach. But the, the reason that I love it is that it places any, anything within a much broader context, right? So that is that if you want to understand anything that’s happening in front you, you also have to account for all of these other factors. Um, and I use that in my own research, right, to think about how people are interacting with other people and with their environment. Um, but I also use it in my life to think about, you know, if, if someone’s doing something that you don’t like, you can’t change their behavior, right, because you have no control over that. But in systems theory, it lets you think about ways that you can change your behavior, your interaction with them or the broader context, in ways that that can lead to behavior change and so that, I think, is probably my favorite theory. |
| Bradley (01:12:38) | Well, I can relate to that because if, if I was interviewing you and I wasn’t smiling at all, I was like this the whole time, lower voice, it…you feed off of that and so you can control yourself and your nonverbal. You know, facial reactions and whether or not you actually react in that, that the combination between that interaction between you and that other individual are going to have an impact. So, I, I can see that, and I’m not summarizing systems theory. I’m not attempting to, but I’m just giving you an example of, of what I’ve seen and heard and experienced in my research as well. What is something new, a lot of people need a little time on this, what is something new that you have learned recently? |
| Heather (01:13:22) | Something new that I have learned recently? Um, so probably around the, the pandemic related issues, I’ve learned the importance of having grace for other people, not just in my own life, but when it when I look at interactions for others, there’s a lot of anger and discontent right now, and it’s because everybody is stressed, right? I mean, that’s where it’s coming from. But it’s just really taught me the importance of having empathy for others and encouraging a little bit of grace, right? Particularly when everyone is, is stressed. |
| Bradley (01:14:02) | Yeah definitely. And understanding the grace and understanding come play a huge role. A lot of people just want to talk about what they’re feeling and going through, and I’m not a psychologist by any means, but just being there for them may help them, you know, release, release some of those positive endorphins, and then get through the day and have a different outlook. So, I, I like that answer. If I didn’t like it, I guess I wouldn’t say that either, but… |
| Heather (01:14:27) | Fair enough. |
| Bradley (01:14:30) | Oh, here’s another question that’s kind of similar, but I just asked you what you learned recently, something new. What’s the most important thing that you’ve learned in your life? So, go back to your memory. It’s not going to be that vivid as, as forecasting and looking forward, but what’s the most important thing you’ve learned in life? |
| Heather (01:14:52) | OK, I get, that things change right. You know you change, your circumstances change, the world changes and that’s just the way life is, right? And so, you know to I, I think the most, the biggest thing I’ve learned is that to be successful is to, to anticipate that things are going to change and to be comfortable with that and then to look for opportunities, right, for success and growth, no matter how the things are changing around you. |
| Bradley (01:15:23) | OK, very good answer…I like that, I like that. If you had time and money to complete one more project or go on one trip, what would you do? |
| Heather (01:15:33) | Go on one trip…I would go diving in the Maldives. |
| Bradley (01:15:38) | Look at that that came to you right away. |
| Heather (01:15:41) | I have plans. |
| Bradley (01:15:43) | Well, that’s good, are you? |
| Heather (01:15:44) | Um? |
| Bradley (01:15:45) | Is that snorkeling, diving or actual diving with a breather and, and oxygen? |
| Heather (01:15:50) | Scuba diving, yes. |
| Bradley (01:15:51) | OK scuba diving. OK, no, that’s good. |
| Heather (01:15:52) | Yeah, I’d love to do that. |
| Bradley (01:15:55) | That’s a great. That’s the first time I’ve heard that actually interviewing everybody, so that’s a good one. Hey, uh, is there anything else that you would like to discuss or bring up during the podcast? |
| Heather (01:16:07) | Just, you know, so we were talking earlier about how hard it is to get the information that you need when you’re trying to make decisions about grad school and about career and about your life. And it’s like, I guess the only thing I would add is, is to continue to seek that information so you know your listeners are doing that by tuning into your podcast. And it sounds like you’re providing a lot of the contacts and information that can help them, right, and help them make choices. And then just to, to keep looking, right? There’s a ton of resources out there and, you know I’m sure, successful people who would be willing to mentor you and give you advice and so just to, to reach out and make those connections and keep looking. |
| Bradley (01:16:48) | Dr. Lench, very good advice I, I’m going to close with that. We’re gonna end on that high note…and all of it’s been a high note. I’m sorry I shouldn’t allude to, oh my gosh, there’s been some downsides. No, I really enjoyed talking to you and I really appreciate, yeah. |
| Heather (01:17:00) | Boredom, anger. |
| Bradley (01:17:03) | I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with us. We’re going to work on this and get this up and running and live as soon as we can and will share it with you and then feel free to share it with your students and on your website as well on social media. But I think we’re on the same page, we’re both here to help the students, help prospective psychology students as well. I really had a good time talking to you as you can tell I’m a little red because I’m, I’ve been laughing and smiling the whole time as well, but I, I do appreciate taking the time. I will go ahead and stop the podcast and, and just stay on I’d like to talk to you for a couple more minutes, but again, thank you for sharing your story and advice with us. |
| Heather (01:17:45) | Sounds good, thank you and thank to all. |