#3: Mission Log: 250425
As my university degree nears its end (just 31 more days to go according to my countdown timer!), I’m living in that strange in-between: head down working towards final university deadlines, and head up thinking about what’s next.
In this mission log I’m going to cover off three key activities this past week:
Submitted my final tutor marked assessment (DD317)
Began writing up my final project report (DE300)
Researching analogue missions and expeditions for later this year
Let’s go!
Wrapping up DD317: My last TMA
This module (full name: DD317 Advancing Social Psychology) has been brilliant. However, this last Tutor Marked Assignment was truly one of the most difficult I’ve ever had to write. And not because the subject material was particularly challenging (although it was the final assignment in a level 3 course!), but because my brain just wants this whole degree to be over with now.
The essay question was provocative: “When using psychoanalytic concepts in social psychology, we need to be mindful that they emerged from clinical practice. Critically discuss this statement.”
I had gone through 4 years of my psychology degree before I encountered Freud’s work in any depth, which speaks volumes to his current standing in academia. This last block in the module explored how the concepts of bestial self and relational self, repression, and defence mechanisms (splitting, projection, denial) can be useful to social psychological researchers. We explored the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (from events in 2015, given this course was written in 2016…) and debates that happened on UK university campuses that descended into chaos and reached international headlines.
Personally, I find the application of Freud’s theories to social phenomena a bit of a stretch, and reductionist in that it boils down group dynamics to the constraints of an individual’s psyche. But I had an interesting point of reflection on how some of the defence mechanisms might be actually playing out collectively in the US at the moment - particularly splitting (MAGA is good; woke is bad), projection (“the left are all pedophiles!” - despite substantial evidence that Republicans are not to be trusted with children) and denial (I mean, just the lies and excuses that come out of Trump’s or any of his cronies’ mouths right now).
The problem is that psychoanalysis is highly subjective and highly interpretative. You cannot guess at what is going on with someone, because we are talking about unconscious processes that they themselves may be unaware of. It takes a skilled analyst to explore this intensively with a patient over a significant period of time. We must be careful not to ‘project’ our own interpretations of behaviour where we have no way of validating them. Beware the armchair psychologists!
Regardless, my appetite has been wet with some of Freud’s ideas. Sitting on my bookshelf is a copy of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious which I plan to read next. Freud theorised that jokes are funny precisely because they break social taboos: they touch on subjects that we collectively repress such as sex, death, politics. In that sense jokes offer a kind of psychic release. They let something slip through the cracks of our cultural filters, revealing what lies just beneath the surface. What we laugh at can say a lot about what we’re trying not to feel.
DE300: The Final Frontier (of undergrad research)
Ok, technically this isn’t the final piece of assessed work for my degree — I have the End of Module Assessment (EMA) for DD317 due on 29 May. But any normal student would have been studying modules one at a time, and this would represent the last big submission in their degree.
This week I mapped out the structure of the report and drafted the Methods section. Since I submitted TMA 5 DD317 in a whole week early (go me!) I’ve carved out two weeks of thinking space for DE300 instead of just one. That said, with trips to London, client work and general life stuff happening, I’ve had to get granular: blocking out my study days in 3-hour chunks and assigning specific tasks to each one.
I’m really looking forward to sharing this research more publicly (once it’s been graded in July!). Back when my experiment was at 32 participants the results were non-significant, which is pretty common in research, but still a bit deflating. But then something unexpected happened: by the time I got to 40 participants the results were statistically significant, AND in the opposite direction my hypothesis (and the current literature) had predicted! That twist made it genuinely fun to think about why that might be and to explore possible future areas for research.
And slightly tangential to this — but in the final weeks of the online study materials this image came up with the caption ‘time for reflection’:
And I cried! I couldn’t help it — I’ve been so head down on doing (researching, reading, planning, writing, editing, submitting - then onto the next!) that I haven’t really acknowledged how I’m feeling about the degree journey coming to an end.
I feel all the things this picture represents: stronger self-belief that I can succeed with whatever I put my mind to, growth, potential, pride in my accomplishments. The person looking back at me in the mirror is a force to be reckoned with now.
No more playing small.
Going analogue
My other goal this week was to research analogue astronaut missions. This was off the back of the chat with Laura Thomas, space psychologist, last week.
I spent a couple of hours on Thursday afternoon trawling through various websites and making notes in Notion on what I like the look of. I’ve shortlisted it to two events this coming summer:
Bronze navigator course with Space Health Research in late June (UK)
Analogue workshop with Lunares in August (Poland)
The navigator course looks really cool: since the 1960s astronauts have been taught basic survival training skills in different terrains (jungle, desert) because when they return to Earth there can be unforeseen issues and they may land in locations they hadn’t originally planned for. Until the rescue crew gets there, they may be on their own. I consider myself adventurous and feel like this 2 day course will give me some insight into how astronauts are trained to expect the unexpected!
Meanwhile, the analogue workshop is great preparation for a longer mission where I can conduct my own research. It’s still 5 days in isolation (compared to 14 days for a standard mission) — no phone, no live TV, no leaving the habitat. In a way I’ve had some preparation for this when I did a 10 day silent retreat in India… What I really like about this workshop is you get to have a go at an ExtraVehicular Activity (via a simulation) — which sounds like loads of fun. Plus I get given my own suit that I can take home afterwards.
These are just the foundations of building my research profile. I also need to dive into the existing research in space psychology to identify where the gaps are — and for that I’m already following a bunch of space researchers on ResearchGate. My interest has always been in beliefs and behaviour change, and I hope to transfer what I learn from the high pressure and extreme environment of space into practical approaches every leader can take.