Getting trapped: it can happen to the best of us. And the worst traps are the ones in our own mind. Mental frames might limit our opportunities to create an academic environment that facilitates productive, happy and healthy researchers. What might these mental frames look like and what to do with them?
It’s not up to me
Yes, one dimension of workplace functioning is its organization in terms of who has which function or role, and which rights and responsibilities are connected to that. In other words: who can push which button? Firing a peer over whom you have no authority might be so inappropriate that you will get laughed at. But what about proposing to change the way lab meetings go? Can you? And can you be the one asking the first question after a presentation, and thus steer the conversation into the direction you desire? Can you request a (sensitive) topic to be discussed during a meeting? And who gets to decide what the agenda is for your research group meeting anyway? Is it okay to take the initiative to talk about the team dynamics in your research group, or should you wait for the one formally in charge to do so? Do you unquestionably take orders from the people around you, do you entirely set your own priorities, or is it a topic that is openly discussed?
Locus of control
For many researchers who are not on top of the academic food chain (yet), these questions lie in a grey area: probably no one tells you you can’t do these things, but you might feel there’s a threshold to actually do it. They might not even come to mind. The latter is often refered to as to our ‘locus of control’. Locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control. An internal locus of control is the belief that one can control one's own life, an external locus of control is built on the assumption that life is controlled by outside factors that the person cannot influence, or that chance or fate control their lives: ‘it’s not up to me’. In the aforementioned grey areas, your locus of control is often not predescribed.
If there are no apparent rules, it might be up to you to decide if it’s feasible to actively influence your environment.
The effects of your locus of control
Please do know that an internal locus of control (‘yes, it is up to me’, to a certain degree) has been associated with less procrastination in academia, more proactive and effective learning behavior, greater academic achievements, more job satisfaction, more job involvement, higher selfesteem and less stress. On the other hand, people who report a more external locus of control (‘nope, I can not change this, let’s wait it out’) also report more concurrent and future stressful experiences and higher levels of psychological and physical problems. And yes, there are cultural differences in terms of how strong these effects can be, but studies do consistently show that having an external locus of control is related to depression.
The question
That can make you wonder. Do I want to ask myself or my peers whether it’s ‘factually’ or in terms of formal roles ‘up to me’? Or do I want to base my way of approaching these issues on what works best? Then you might discover that, yes, sometimes you’re in a situation that is unquestionably beyond your control, but oftentimes you might be telling yourself that, while in fact you’re stuck on an elevator. Then adopting a more internal locus of control (you can actually influence your situation) might be a way better path to take.
If the challenge you are facing seems too big, too complicated to fathom, let alone to see yourself as a possible change agent, it might help to break it down into smaller pieces that lend itself for experimentation.
Which piece of the puzzle can I start with?
The waiting game
And what if the PI / supervisor / person in charge that you are waiting for, is totally unaware of your unfulfilled need or the opportunity you see? What if although they may be very senior in other respects, they are not trained or experienced in attending and facilitating the specific thing you have in mind? What if they are simply too busy or occupied with other aspects to be aware or actively dealing with this. How long will you wait? And on the other hand: what’s the risk of testing the waters yourself? Is there a small step you can take to test whether your issue is shared by more people, whether your idea might be feasible, e.g. by checking it with a fellow peer or including it in your regular meeting with your supervisor?
Generations in academia
This mental frame might become more problematic if you believe that there are generational effects in workplace preferences and needs. Could it be that younger generations, younger people in academia, have different needs than older generations? Without calling all younger researchers to OK Boomer their PI / supervisor: is academia served with a hierarchy where younger generations wait for a couple of decades, before co-molding their academic environment into something that works for them and, may we say, the future?
That’s easier said than done
Great: you had the courage to adopt – to a certain degree - an internal locus of control. Then you did something, tried to influence your environment to make things better, but it simply didn’t work. For instance: you tried to motivate your students in a meeting, but they seemed completely unresponsive. Or you’ve asked for something from your supervisory team – a small and reasonable request, but you didn’t get it. Or even worse: you tried something, and then the conversation simply became awkward, no one seemed to understand each other and in the end everyone just walked away. In other words: you push a button, but computer says no. It might add up to a belief already lingering in the back of our minds, that some of us also share openly: you should accept the way your academic environment behaves as a fact of academic life. If you can’t deal with that: leave.
Persist
But then think back to your research. Is that a matter of pushing a button, and the results immediately came rolling in? Of typing down an article, sending it in, and celebrating the immediate acceptance by the journal? Isn’t actually one of our forte’s, our talents, that we can be extremely persistent in pursuing our goals, and creative and flexible in finding new ways to overcome hurdles we are confronted with along the way. Isn’t experimentation the core of our method: informed and creative trial and error until we succeed?
If we are so persistent, experimental and creative in our research, why would we so easily give up our endeavors to positively influence our academic environment?
The mental frames we allow ourselves to get trapped in, might provide us with a sense of safety: we know what to expect, running the treadmill that was set out for us. But could it be that we can relatively easily step of that treadmill, take initiative to shape our environment to our needs, one little step at a time if needs be?