Growth & Gratitude

This paper was my undergraduate thesis, and it also brought an earlier chapter of my life to a close before classes began in September. Although the study grew out of my supervisor’s research project, turning an idea in a project proposal into a study that could actually be carried out was an invaluable learning opportunity for a relatively inexperienced undergraduate.

On our previous paper, Prof. Cheng had guided me step by step through the project. This time, because it was my own thesis, I had to take ownership. In that sense, it was the first time I had carried an entire project through myself. I came to appreciate just how many details require attention when leading a research project, and how important it is to keep track of its progress.

For my previous paper with Prof. Cheng, I wrote the Introduction, while he wrote the Discussion. Before this project, I therefore had no experience writing a Discussion section. This paper gave me another opportunity to learn, and helped me build foundational experience in writing both the Introduction and the Discussion.

Through this thesis, I went from knowing only SPSS and Mplus to taking my first tentative steps into Python, R, and Stata—a real step forward in my research skills.

While working on awe-related research, I had often read papers from Jiang’s research group. Their articles in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP) frequently used large-scale data analysis. My motivation at the time was simple: I wanted to try those methods too. Methods such as text analysis also seemed particularly well suited to fertility, a topic widely discussed on social media. I had not expected that I would actually be able to make it work.

There were plenty of obstacles at the beginning. For example, only the first 50 pages of public Weibo posts could be retrieved: how could I access discussions beyond those pages and obtain more data? But I worked through the obstacles one by one. I am grateful to live in a time when the internet makes it possible to seek help from people with computing expertise, and when AI is also available to help.

I became better at framing a paper and telling its story. With Prof. Cheng’s guidance, I gradually learned to spot and think through gaps in my reasoning, as well as places where the writing could be improved.

I also feel that I have become more “peaceful”, especially after several rounds of discussion and disagreement with reviewers. That change has carried over into everyday life: when difficulties or problems arise, I am less emotionally unsettled than before. My approach is simple: when a problem arises, work through it.