SG Psych Stuff @ SPS Psych Week 2018: Review Part 2

Image Credit: https://singaporepsychologicalsociety.org/events/psychweek2018/

Have you seen Part 1?  If not, here it is!!
 Let’s continue from where we have left off during the last post:

Day 3

Topic: Technological disruptions in private practice: A forum discussion
Speakers: Tey Beng Huan and Edgar Tham

Both Beng Huan and Edgar agree that technology may have the possibility to take over a lot of jobs.  However, there are still lots of aspects that require human touch and interaction to resolve the issue or to look into the concerns involved.  Hence, the job scope of a psychologist is less likely to be taken over by technology, but rather can be complemented with the use of technology.  They have shared that in both Industrial and Organizational (I/O) Psychology and Sport Psychology, technology has made significant impact in terms of the assessment and the tracking systems.  Both professionals have used various technology to replace the traditional survey methods.  They strive to use technology to better achieve the accuracy of the results and better assist the organizations or individuals to analyse the concerns, and ways to improve the situations.

This talk has given a significant insight to all audiences that assessments and surveys can be done in a more engaging and accurate method via the existing technology.  A common and powerful tool mentioned in this talk is to  the 360-profiling system that allows us to get an average opinion from self, management, direct supervisor, peers, subordinates and even clients who we have interacted with to get a holistic view on the concerns that we want to look into.

Image Credit: https://www.mysurveylab.com/en/blog/360-feedback-survey/

All in all, I think this talk is fairly useful for new psychology professionals to have a brief understanding on how assessments can be done in the field of I/O Psychology as well as Sport Psychology.  This means other than the traditional method of collecting the data from individuals, we are now able to use a more creative and accurate way to collect the data.

Day 4

Topic: Workplace disruptions and the impact on learning
Speaker: Christy Chung

I am particularly amazed that being a mum of 5 children and a full-time job, she is very driven to gain new knowledge.  She has just embarked on her PhD program, and also recently graduated from a NAFA program.  Christy shared that being the oldest in the class, she faced great challenges to learn how to manage the technology, however she is determined to learn and practice many times from home and finally she pulled it through.  Through this experience, she shared that the motivation of learning in students is highly related to the the learning experiences in the classroom and the intrinsic motivation of the students.

Although Christy is not from the Psychology field, she provided great insights on how technology impacted on the learning of different generations.  From her experience heading a career office, she shared some inputs towards the necessary skills and attributes of today's graduates. She also shared some possible insights towards the upcoming trends where psychology students can consider to venture into.

Day 5

Topic: Enhancing Your Psychology Journey Through Volunteering
Speaker: Xavierlyn Tan

This talk is one of the highest attendance out of the five days with active volunteers making up about half of the audience.  This resulted in an insightful discussion on volunteering.  Let's explore the concept of volunteering as shared in the talk.

Who can volunteer? Everyone!

As a unique individual, everyone has something to contribute.  It is up to us to decide for ourselves which avenue is best to contribute back to society.  Volunteering takes up many forms but can be loosely classified into two categories.

Regular Volunteering 

• Personal Interaction
• Commitment
• Soft Skills

Adhoc Volunteering

• Behind the scenes
• Flexibility
• Technical Skills

Note: There is a fine line between Regular and Adhoc Volunteering

It is a common belief that volunteering means one must interact directly with individuals of an organisation. But, it is not true! Other forms of volunteering can include video taking, events planning such as planning for a community outreach day to bring awareness to the needy family.

As the different forms of volunteer work require specific skill sets, volunteers are place in a position where they can get out of their comfort zone to better serve the organisation or community, which in turn may also grow the volunteers in terms of their skill set or as an individual.

Perks of volunteering

It is bewildering how much benefits are tagged to the act of volunteering. There are numerous studies that suggest a correlational nature of volunteering with happiness (Mellor, Hayashi, Stokes, Firth, Lake, Staples, and Cummins, 2007), longevity (Post, 2005) and motivations for self-improvement (Snyder, 2011).

Psychology students reap the additional benefits from these pre-graduation exposures as these may help them decide on their respective specialization.  The interaction with the psychology professionals also provides an opportunity to network with fellow like-minded individuals.

My personal takeaway for volunteering is the need to understand the core reason for why I should volunteer.  As a freshman, it is important for me to network and get exposed to different fields of volunteering to find a field that I truly keen to work on it.  This talk made me realise there is more to volunteering; what really matters is the attitude.  The prime reason to volunteer is to give the kindness of your heart.  Despite my lack of qualifications, it is still a way to give back to the society.

As an adhoc volunteer, I may shy away from taking up certain responsibilities if I do not believe I am able to do them well.  By avoiding the challenging tasks, I do not grow in my capacity as a volunteer.   After my due reflection, I’m determined to try new roles if given a chance to return to the society.

“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” - Gilbert K. Chesterson

Conclusion

We would like to thank Nelson, Cai Yun, and B, a core member of SG Psych Stuff.  To us, PsychWeek 2018 has been an enlightening journey for us and we have also met many wonderful people to share distinct perspectives and to get new insights.  To those have attended the PsychWeek 2018, we hope you have learnt something useful as well throughout the sessions.

References

Mellor, D., Hayashi, Y., Stokes, M., Firth, L., Lake, L., Staples, M., & Cummins, R. (2007). Volunteering and Its Relationship With Personal and Neighborhood Well-Being. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 38(1), 144-159. doi:10.1177/0899764008317971

Post, S. G. (2005). Altruism, happiness, and health: It’s good to be good. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 12(2), 66-77. doi:10.1207/s15327558ijbm1202_4

Snyder, M. (2011). Working for the Common Good: Individuals and Groups Address the Challenges Facing the World. For the Greater Good of All, 167-182. doi:10.1057/9780230116269_10