Welcome to our Lab Spotlight! For the rest of the year, we will be introducing members of the lab, one by one. Our first student profile is of Yekta Sharafaddin-zadeh.
**Who are you? Where are you from?**
My name is Yekta and I am in my third year of a BSc in Psychology. I lived in Iran until I was 10, moved to Victoria for grade 6 and 7, and to Edmonton in grade 8. My ethnic background is Persian, sometimes people use Iranian – this is one of the main factors that pushed my interest towards psychology and IC Lab. Aside from school, I love art, fashion, and for a while I did hair and makeup (as shown in the attached photos).
**Why did you decide to pursue a BSc?**
I love science and am very passionate about chemistry. Initially I was going to do research in that field, but when I first started doing research in psychology I found it much more interesting. Regardless of my undergraduate degree, I hope to pursue medicine in the future, in hopes of being a surgeon.
**What are you currently working on in the Lab?**
I am helping with Dr. Chaffee’s gender threat study as well as the lab-wide language learning study. But for my independent study I am looking at the relationship between interdependence and the chameleon effect.
**Could you elaborate on that a little more?**
For sure! The chameleon effect typically refers to the unconscious mimicry of non-verbal behaviour, such as gestures and mannerisms. We like people mimicking us, so depending on the interdependence between the two individuals the amount of mimicry differs. I want to show that the chameleon effect occurs verbally in these situations as well.
**How’s this week going? Anything exciting happen?**
I started a club in winter 2018 to raise awareness for Multiple Sclerosis. This week I have been really busy collecting raffle prizes for a pub crawl we are organizing on November 9th. We are raising money to fund the educational presentations we put on at schools around Edmonton.
