Toil, tenacity and tears in a green auditorium at ZU

Justin Thomas witnesses graduating students presenting their senior research projects

Zayed Unversity in Abu Dhabi (Stephen Lock / The National)

The defining event of a successful undergraduate career is the submission of a final dissertation. Some institutions call this a capstone project, referencing the ancient practice of laying the final stone. With the completion of the senior project the metaphorical capstone is laid and the edifice is complete.

Last week I was honoured to be master of ceremonies for the undergraduate psychology symposium at Zayed University. This is an annual event at which final year students present their senior research projects. These are the projects that the students have spent months agonising over, and they represent the most ambitious assignments they have ever completed.

Whenever students have to stand on stage and talk in front of peers, parents and professors, anxiety levels tend to be high. But at the symposium there is a different kind of anxiety: this is an anxiety mixed with optimism, relief and the dawning realisation that it’s almost all over.

Assisted by this realisation, the senior project presentations tend to be the most polished and professional the students have ever given. I have seen students who were previously mumbling and mouse-like, take to the stage with TED-talk swagger and present like veterans of Toastmasters. The capstone, like the philosopher’s stone, seems to have transformative powers.

This year’s event featured the work of the third group of psychology students to graduate from ZU. With each successive presentation I have witnessed the quality of the research improve. For me this reflects the growing maturity of psychology as a discipline within the institution, and also a growing appreciation of how psychology can help meet national needs. Many of our most pressing social challenges are bound up with how humans think, feel and behave.

Much of the research presented by the class of 2016 was of potential strategic importance to the UAE, and almost all of it addressed gaps in the existing research literature. Given the Gulf’s hitherto relatively low research output, it’s not too difficult to identify unexplored psychological issues.

One student’s senior research project focused on exploring the social factors associated with psychological well-being among Emiratis. Specifically, she looked at how cultural values such as individualism and collectivism were associated with psychotic symptoms. Her findings suggested that having higher levels of collectivist cultural values (strongly valuing interdependence and group harmony) was associated with better mental health, while having more individualistic values (strongly valuing independence and personal achievements) was associated with higher levels of paranoia.

Another student looked at the relationship between social anxiety and self-representation on social media among Emirati women. Levels of social anxiety were assessed using a widely used inventory, while self-representation was assessed by coding the images Emirati women used to represent themselves on Instagram. As predicted, there was a clear relationship: greater social anxiety was associated with less revealing self-representations on Instagram. Some people have headshots, others show hands, while others show only images of nature or celebrities. The socially anxious tend to show less of themselves.

In keeping with the cyber-research theme, another student used linguistic analytics software to compare the Twitter posts of Emirati students with their own personality profiles. This project used innovative technologies and tapped into Big Data.

The day ended in smiles. Four years of toil, tenacity and tears came to an end on a small stage in a green auditorium. However, this is not the end of the journey. If we, the faculty, have done our jobs well, then at least some of these bright young minds will go on to be lifelong learners and make significant contributions to the UAE and humanity.

Dr Justin Thomas is an associate professor of psychology at Zayed University and author of Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States

On Twitter: @DrJustinThomas