Alvin’s Masters Thesis Proposal Presentation

Recently, first year graduate lab member Alvin presented his Masters thesis proposal. Alvin is interested in examining the impact of failure and achievement experiences, and how such experiences related to both positive and negative outcomes. Positive outcomes of interest include growth and wisdom, while negative outcomes include learned helplessness and fear of failure. He is also interested in examining if variables such as resiliency and rumination might influence the relationship between experiences and outcomes. Alvin hopes to test his hypotheses in a sample of undergraduate students as this research may be particularly beneficial to them. He hopes to use this information to help individuals who have experienced failure by motivating them to improve their goal setting strategies, while also demonstrating that outcomes of failure are not always negative, and may involve positive changes as well. In the future, Alvin would like to expand his research to broader samples in order to increase the generalizability of the findings. This research has the potential to impact intervention and therapy programs, and Alvin hopes to translate this research to his own practice in the future as a clinical psychologist.