Author: Gemma Rides

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Last month, Gemma and Zain presented some of their PhD work at the Royal Holloway Doctoral Conference. This conference invites PhD researchers across all the Royal Holloway departments to showcase their work and learn about the fascinating  projects going on across campus.  This also created a space for interdisciplinary networking  and future collaboration between researchers!

Gemma presented some of her research exploring adolescents perceptions of social media use, and Zain provided an overview of her PhD and plans for future research.

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In early September, Prof. Dawn Watling and Dr. Beatrice Hayes presented their research at the British Psychological Society’s Developmental and Cognitive Sections Annual Conference which took place at the University of Bristol. Prof. Dawn Watling presented her research on children’s wellbeing when in nature; this project is in collaboration with Kew Wakehurst. Prof. Watling’s presentation was part of a symposium organised by an ex-lab member, Dr. Rachel Nesbit, who is now a Lecturer at the University of Exeter. Dr. Beatrice Hayes also presented her research on higher education students’ online self-disclosure and impression management behaviours. Dr. Hayes is also a member of the British Psychological Society’s Developmental Committee and enjoyed assisting with the organisation and running of the conference. As well as listening to a whole host of fascinating talks that took place over the 4-day conference, Prof. Watling and Dr. Hayes enjoyed the Conference Social which consisted of a barbecue and karaoke! Dr. Hayes, alongside RHUL PhD student, Amrita Bains, proudly represented the Developmental Section during the karaoke!

Prof. Dawn Watling and Dr. Beatrice Hayes also presented this research at the European Conference of Developmental Psychology which took place in August in Turku, Finland. 

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The Soc Dev Lab was thrilled to be back at Royal Holloway’s Science Festival on Saturday 27th May 2023!

A day of science exploration and discovery, Royal Holloway showcased it’s thriving science community, with a huge variety of hands-on demonstrations and activities for visitors to take part in. The Social Development Lab kept busy with our two research activities led by PhD students, Zain Khan and Gemma Rides, with support from Prof. Dawn Watling and Abigail Keizner.

Zain led a demonstration titled ‘Recognising emotions in faces – can conflicting information impact processing of information?’ – This demonstration was really popular with parents, and their children, with some parents wanting to try repeat the task multiple times to try and gain a better emotion recognition accuracy! Check out Zain’s blog post to read more about her Science Festival experience.

Gemma led a demonstration titled ‘ Why doesn’t anyone ‘like’ me? – Links between social media interactions and feelings of social anxiety’. This task involved participants interacting with a mock social media site that Gemma uses in her research. Gemma had some interesting discussions with parents and children about their thoughts and feelings whilst online, and linking this to some of the physiological responses we might experience when using social media platforms.

We all had a great day and are looking forward to seeing everyone again next year!

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Exciting things to come in the Social Development Lab!

In April’s meeting, Dr Joe Bathelt, presented research plans for an exciting upcoming project. Joe is collaborating with a number of other experts in his field on this exciting research. More information coming soon!

In May’s meeting, Gemma Rides provided an overview of her second PhD study that focuses on adolescent social media engagement. Gemma presented preliminary findings from her research and discussed plans for data analysis and ideas for future studies.  Gemma will be continuing her data collection in schools later this term.

Watch this space for updates later this year!

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On November 30th, 2022, members of the Social Development Lab had their Christmas outing at Genevieve’s Gallery in Englefield Green. The outing was full of laughter and Christmas cheer as the lab members spent the evening painting pottery.

After an introduction from Genevieve, the lab members selected a piece of pottery from the selection, ranging from mugs, spoon holders, or even a Christmas gnome! Everyone got stuck in and was excited to show their creative side using the wide range of paints and tools to create their unique pottery piece.

The evening was a great success and gave everyone the opportunity to celebrate the lab’s achievements of 2022. We look forward to all the exciting projects that are to come in 2023!