Soapbox Science Munich – Anna-Katharina Stöcker, M.Sc.
Soapbox Science 2023 in Munich – I get to present my research. Publicly, in front of people who do not know me or my research topic. Narcissism in managers, a topic that always attracts attention. At the beginning of my doctoral thesis, I once jokingly said, “I wanted to find a party hit as a topic.” I quickly realized how much I had hit the mark with that – everyone, but really everyone, has a story about it. The ex-boss, the ex-boyfriend, the ex-teacher…
Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg
At the same time, I started my scientific work. I love the atmosphere and spirit at the university, and I am absolutely grateful for the support I get from my academic supervisor. I love developing research questions, designing measurement approaches, collecting data, analyzing data sets, discussing the results with my team, asking new questions, and starting all over again. I learned to love putting my work down in writing – and yes, that’s one thing I have had to work on. But one thing I still struggle with is asserting myself in scientific discourse. Defending my own work, dealing with mostly objective, but sometimes also personal feedback, being judged in peer review processes where my work is read (sometimes in full, sometimes probably only in part) and critiqued or criticized (sometimes positively, more often negatively) – which sometimes leads to refinement and improvement of my work, sometimes leaves me frustrated and discouraged. I did not expect that – I did not expect that on average only 5 to 20% of submitted papers are published, depending on the journal; that a paper that is not rejected is a great success, that everything takes so long, and that I am so dependent on the mercy of editors and reviewers. I know that this is important to ensure quality, and I am grateful for the time that editors and reviewers invest to help me improve my work, and I gladly accept any and all feedback that helps my work progress. This is not easy, given that (like many other researchers) I have always had very good grades – at school, in my studies, at work. My academic supervisor, who has a lot of experience in this field, likes my work and supports me.
And then: The review process starts and I sweat profusely before opening the document containing the feedback of reviewers. Not only did I doubt the quality of my work, but I began to doubt myself – my ability to develop research questions, design measurement approaches, collect data, analyze data sets, discuss the results with my team, raise new questions, start all over again, and finally see my work in writing and hopefully then in print. These are the things I actually love about science – and I sometimes forget that when I am stuck in review processes.
When I realized this, I wanted to change something about it. I started talking about these doubts – with colleagues at the university, with researchers in my field but at other universities, with researchers in other fields and at other universities… And I realized: Most of them had similar or the same experiences! The scientific process can be extremely hard – so hard that one’s self-esteem can be severely shaken. But still – we love to do science. We need to talk more about the challenges we face in our work, not suffer in silence and self-doubts. But at the same time, we need to focus on the things we love about science: And that’s why I’ll be presenting my research at Soapbox Science 2023 – even though it’s not easy for me to present my research to the public.
Presenting my research to an audience at Soapbox Science 2023 in Munich is an experiment. An experiment that I hope will once again get people excited about my topics. That people can relate my findings to the stories they have in their heads about their ex-bosses, ex-boyfriends, ex-teachers. That they can experience my love of the research process and learn to share my enthusiasm for personality psychology and its application to leadership research. That my topic will be a party hit again!
You can connect with Anna-Katharina on LinkedIn.
Soapbox Science Munich 