Making research interest more concise?

[hrj_BA]

Currently, I am interested in a few different topics, but am kind of having a hard time finding literature or even the proper vocabulary to describe what I would like to study. The best way I can think about putting it is the development and cognition behind causal reasoning, particularly maladaptive biases related to causal reasoning. Ideally, this would be under a behavioral genetics (twin study) frame work. To elaborate, many people have trouble and extrapolate incorrect/illogical patterns from everyday observation and behavior, like in the cases of the gambler's fallacy or the post hoc fallacy. I am interested in seeing if these errors in reasoning are evolutionarily advantageous (like how they relate to temporal discounting/ Life History Theory)  and how so, if they have an effect on criminal activity and antisocial tendencies among other facets of psychopathology, and whether there are neural correlates (neuropsychological deficits) which can reliably predict where these kinds of errors might come from. 

 

I have emailed several faculty members I am interested in working with, but they all seem to read only the first sentence about wanting more experience and not so much with discussing my actual question.

 

If anyone has better words for the concepts I am trying to describe (mostly evolutionary and cognitive psychology paradigms), any researchers in mind, or just general advice, I would be more than happy and thankful to hear any and all feedback.

 

Thanks and best of luck in all of your pursuits (: 

[t_ruth]

I don't have specific wording advice, but can advise you to appeal to ego: read studies of the PI you are interested in working with and ask them about the study. You can say something like: I really enjoyed your paper on X. I was wondering how [some topic you are interested in studying] would relate to your finding that [whatever their finding was]. Then, you could say you would love to talk to them about those ideas.

[Clinapp2017]

Just now, t_ruth said:

I don't have specific wording advice, but can advise you to appeal to ego: read studies of the PI you are interested in working with and ask them about the study. You can say something like: I really enjoyed your paper on X. I was wondering how [some topic you are interested in studying] would relate to your finding that [whatever their finding was]. Then, you could say you would love to talk to them about those ideas.

Caveat to this - only do this for recent papers. Research lines change as funding changes, so looking at a paper from >5 years ago is a bad idea. 

 

And in terms of your interests, they seem kind of all over the place. Maybe focus on 1-2 aspects of that. 

Edited October 18, 2019 by Clinapp2017

[t_ruth]

5 hours ago, Clinapp2017 said:

Caveat to this - only do this for recent papers. Research lines change as funding changes, so looking at a paper from >5 years ago is a bad idea.

Not sure if I agree with this. Recent papers are good yes, but I certainly have lines of research from > 5 years ago that I haven't recently published on, but are still part of my world. If a smart and interesting student came around who wanted to work on that line of work, it would be exciting to me. If you email them noting you want to work on something they are no longer pursuing, that's good information for you to know too.

[higaisha]

I wouldn't focus so much on your own amazing theory (we all have them) because PIs usually don't care at this stage. I second other posters in maybe fitting in one of your ideas into a professors existing line of research, you're there to learn from them and develop your own ideas as you progress.

Edited October 19, 2019 by higaisha