Stafetten XUAN LI

Af Josefine Bechgaard Lisse, stud.psych.

Illustration af Marie Faeste, stud.psych.

Stafetten er Indputs faste indlæg om fakultetets ansatte, hvor de svarer på vores spørgsmål om sig selv og derefter sender stafetten videre til en anden ansat efter eget ønske. Denne gang har Stig Poulsen givet Stafetten videre til Xuan Li.

Why did you choose to study psychology?

As with many psychologists, I actually did not start my undergraduate study with psychology – I was an enthusiastic Germanistik (German language and literature) major. But I also wanted to do something else on the side. Fortunately, my alma mater, Peking University, has minor/double-degree programmes for undergraduates, and psychology was offered as one of the disciplines. After considering several options, psychology won, as it sounded cool, and the course schedule happened to have worked for me. So it was more of an accident than anything else.

However, I immediately fell in love with psychology as it is so relevant to everyday life. I was also fascinated by the way in which psychology combines beautiful research designs with self-reflection, compassion, and social commitment. In particular, I was drawn to developmental psychology as I have always loved children, and I had the fortune to follow this path since.

If not psychology, what would you have studied/done?

Ah, the roads untravelled! If not (developmental) psychology, I would most likely still do something related to children. Although I have never studied the topic in depth, I have always been curious about children’s literature – I would most likely have become an author or translator of children’s books.

How would you describe the development/change of psychology from when you studied until now?

Certainly, a much stronger awakening from the W.E.I.R.D. (western, educated, industrialised, rich, and democratic) bubble. As I often half-jokingly say to my students, reading psychology textbooks felt like watching Hollywood films for me when I started learning it as a Chinese undergraduate in the early 2000s – full of kind-of-cool stories about … the Americans (and occasionally, other white Europeans). The topics studied were not so relatable (in what universe do

adolescents have time to develop drug problems? Are you serious that nobody mentioned anything about grandparents when talking about family relationships?), and it was common that everything non-white/middle class was characterised as somewhat pathological.

Fast-forward 15 years, this issue remains far from completely resolved, and plenty of very recent studies revealed that the knowledge production of psychology is still operating with a lot of bias – sometimes in a more covert way. However, there was certainly more awareness about the need and the value to include culture and social contexts in designing and interpreting psychological studies, and much richer conceptual and methodological tools to do so. The field is also more informed, with a rapidly increasing number of empirical studies from the Majority World that challenge many taken-for-granted “norms” (e.g., family means nuclear family).

What do you expect the study/discipline of psychology to look like in 20 years?

It is hard to guess, but I do hope that there would be even more substantial changes that re-situate psychology in the real, diverse, Majority world. I also hope that there would be more interactions between psychology and other disciplines, both in STEM and in social sciences as well as the humanities.

What are your favourite three things in your everyday life?

As of now – my daughter, good food, and music.

If you had the chance to go back to when you were a student, what advice would you give yourself?

Talk to professors – it is not only fun (as they are also human beings, often with interesting stories!) but also very helpful in getting career advice or life hacks. Rest/exercise more – grades are much less important than one imagines in later job or graduate school applications! Conversely, health is much more critical than one imagines for later happiness and sustainable productivity.

Who shall receive the baton from you?

Pia Ingold