• Question: Who inspired you to become a psychologist?

    Asked by anon-315993 on 14 Mar 2022. This question was also asked by anon-323419.
    • Photo: Jamie Chan

      Jamie Chan answered on 14 Mar 2022:

      I was always curious about why people act the way they act and why some people act or think differently than others. I think that’s the main reason why I started studying Psychology. Eventually, I chose to specialise in ‘social psychology’ because I enjoy learning about people’s behaviour with one another. I don’t think a person inspired me but it was more of the subject that drew me to it, but my decision to do a PhD was inspired by my teacher (lecturer) in university – she is super cool and is great at her job.

    • Photo: Hannah Howman

      Hannah Howman answered on 14 Mar 2022:

      I first became interested in psychology when studying the subject at A-level, and I decided that I wanted to study psychology at university. I became more interested in having a career in this area when I was given the opportunity to help a lecturer with some of her research. It was the first time I was involved in a study and I loved being a part of it. That lecturer supported me throughout my undergraduate degree, and inspired me to come back to studying psychology after a two-year break. Now I love the research I’m involved in and working out why people behave the way they do online.

    • Photo: Reece Bush-Evans

      Reece Bush-Evans answered on 14 Mar 2022:

      For me, I had a great teacher who inspired me to go to university. At university, I was lucky to have some fantastic lecturers who were engaging and top of their research field. They also inspired me.

    • Photo: Nadine Mirza

      Nadine Mirza answered on 17 Mar 2022:

      My psychology teacher in school was my first inspiration. I was 17 and it was my first time studying psychology and she made classes so interactive and engaging. It wasn’t hard to learn concepts when she explained them.

      Since then I’ve had lots of inspirations. Like my first boss, when I worked in her clinic for children. She never demanded and she was never mean- she always explained things and helped me learn to do things on my own. Or my professors in my Masters and now my PhD who are helping me foster my career and grow it beyond my expectations and provided me with lots of support during the height of the pandemic when everything was falling apart. And definitely my parents because even when I’ve felt like I couldn’t do it they pushed me so now I’m here.

    • Photo: Michelle Newman

      Michelle Newman answered on 18 Mar 2022:

      In someways, I think it was my own experience with mental ill-health. I have experienced anxiety and depression in the past, and became interested in psychology after that, trying to understand a bit more about how I could look after my own mental health.

      In terms of my specific area of psychology, I saw a video during my undergraduate degree about a 30 year old who had had a stroke and was not able to talk afterwards. I was about the same age and it really stuck with me how that would feel if that happened to me. I wanted to understand more about brain injury and how we can help people who have an injury.

    • Photo: Keri Wong

      Keri Wong answered on 21 Mar 2022:

      Professor Adrian Raine – he was the first psychologist to scan prison’s brains using PET scans to see how they are different to non-prisoner brains!

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