If you’ve read my blog posts from early April of this year, you know that I participated in a psychology research experiment where I had a salty net placed on top of my head to measure my brain wave activity. Today, I attended the second part of this experiment.

No, I did not have to wear an uncomfortable, wet net above my head this time. Instead this one involved how much I could control my emotions and how much I showed them. I filled out a handful of questionnaires about how much I express my emotions to others and how much I rely on others to relieve negative emotions. Then, I was shown a slideshow of photographs that either had a positive, neutral, or negative depiction and I was supposed to either enhance or suppress my emotions to the particular photograph.

For the second part of the experiment, I had a little heat block strapped to my wrist that would heat up to up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit and cause discomfort or pain. Following the instructions from a recording used for the research, I would either have to try and enhance the pain I felt, or try to suppress it.

If you remember from last time, I got $200 from participating in that study. I didn’t make another $200 today, but I made around $150, for a total of $350 spread out across two days. If I scored exceptionally or did particularly well on the tasks, I may qualify for bonuses, which will bring my total above $350.

I spent a total of about 11 hours in the lab – it was supposed to be 8 hours a day for 16 hours total, but I ended up finishing about 2 hours early on both days, and spent about half an hour each day eating lunch. Even if I didn’t get any bonuses, $350 for 11 hours calculates to about $31.82 per hour. That’s about $66,181.82 per year at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks.

I wish my full-time job could be participating in psychology studies.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #104: If you had to debate a version of yourself that was ten years younger, who would win? What about a game of chess? Or a 5k run? How are you better, or worse, at various traits than you were then?

If I had a debate with my nine-year-old self, I think that the victor would be determined by the nature of the topic. If we were debating about something basic, my nineteen-year-old self would probably win because I would be able to outthink and outsmart my nine-year-old self. However, if we were debating about something advanced that my nine-year-old self simply did not understand, my nineteen-year-old self would probably lose because it would see that the argument wasn’t going anywhere and disengage in the debate to conserve energy.

I think it’s pretty obvious that my self now would be able to defeat my nine-year-old self both in a game of chess or in a long-distance run because I’m a lot more intelligent and intuitive than I was ten years ago, as well as much stronger.

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 24

Number of times I did my own laundry: 3