From Curiosity to Inquiry: My Path into Clinical Psychology Research

Hi! My name is Yijia Jia, and I am a clinical psychology intern at the PRIME Research Program. I’m currently a junior double majoring in Psychology and Statistics, with a minor in Astronomy.

My interest in psychology began before I knew much about psychological research. In middle school, I noticed that some people around me often held stereotypes about certain mental disorders and even joked around, without much understanding of what these terms actually meant. To challenge stereotypes, I designed a brochure that used a short fictional storyline to introduce personality disorders and address common misconceptions. Because my own knowledge was limited at that time, I spent a great deal of time reading and learning symptoms, possible causes, and treatments of personality disorders. What began as an attempt to challenge stereotypes became my first introduction to psychology and psychopathology.

At first, psychology was only a body of knowledge to me, and it was the collection of findings and theories of human thoughts and behaviors. Over time, I became increasingly curious about where those findings came from. Driven by this curiosity, I completed a research project examining the association between childhood attachment styles and psychopathy, which gave me the first opportunity to think comprehensively about research design. I began to realize that even details that are seemingly arbitrary, such as how many participants a study should recruit, were actually methodological decisions. Too few participants could leave a study without enough statistical power, while recruiting far more than necessary is wasting time and resources. I learned that tools such as power analysis helped determine a reasonable sample size. For that project, I was allowed to design an ideal experiment in a hypothetical setting, assuming sufficient funding, time, and personnel. This project taught me how psychological questions could be translated into hypotheses, variables, and experimental procedures.

Once I came to UNC, however, research was no longer something I could design under ideal conditions. I began to see how much structure and scrutiny human-subjects research actually requires. From completing CITI training and learning about IRB approval to reading protocols written with extraordinary precision, I was struck by how thoroughly a study has to anticipate what might happen before data collection even begins.

In Dr. Andrea Hussong’s Family Journeys Co-Lab, I began working with survey and data from participants’ sessions and realized how much research happens before any statistical analysis begins. In the lab, I contributed to a project investigating the effect of a VR intervention on self-compassion and was mainly responsible for data management.  I developed data entry and coding protocols, coded variables, and resolved discrepancies in participant records. Tasks that once seemed like pure technical issues showed me how easily inconsistency at an early stage can affect everything that follows.

During the summer, I worked in Dr. Michael Hallquist’s Developmental Personality Neuroscience Lab, and I learned the same rigor at a different stage of the research process, which involved directly interacting with participants. From participant recruitment and eligibility screening to running participant sessions, I was impressed by how deliberately each step had been planned to ensure the accuracy and consistency of multimodal data collection.

In my previous research experiences, I had mostly focused on how studies were designed and conducted. In my current internship at PRIME, directed by Dr. Diana Perkins, my mentor Rachel Bleggi introduced me to another side of research: how research can inform risk identification, intervention, and education. The primary mission of PRIME is to improve the identification, understanding, and intervention of individuals who are at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR).  I have only recently joined the program and am currently completing onboarding and training, including preparing for the ProCAN PSYCHS clinical interview. I am excited to learn research skills through the training process and to eventually gain experience with administering clinical interviews.

I am thankful for the opportunity to intern with PRIME and to learn from Dr. Perkins, Rachel, and the rest of the team. I’d also like to thank Dr. Steven Buzinski and Richie Gray for their support throughout the course, particularly the professional development guidance and opportunities they have provided. The experience at Gil Intern allows me to continue exploring my interest in clinical psychology while also learning more about the connections between research and clinical practice.