Off DeWall: Wired co-Director Goes to China (July 20, 2011)

Wired has the mission of connecting members of the UK family with each other and our local and global communities. This is my first blog entry to show you how I live this mission. I’m in the air right now, on my way to China. I’ll be there for a month doing a bunch of different things devoted to connecting members of the UK family to the global community.

First, I’ll be teaching a short course to Chinese students at Sun Yat-Sen University, which is located in a town called Guangzhou (pronounced GWAN-JOE). It’s in the Southern Part of China, making it something like the Miami of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). I’ll teach psychology students about social psychological research—how to do it, how to evaluate it, and how to get excited about it. I’ll focus on my areas of interest: interpersonal relationships, self-control, and aggression.

Second, I’ll give a speech to the School of Psychology on my research program on how people respond to social exclusion. I relish the opportunity to share the research we’ve conducted at the University of Kentucky with the Chinese faculty and students.

Third, I’ll have lots of meetings with my collaborator and host Xinyue Zhou, along with many other faculty and students. Xinyue and I have written a couple of papers together based on our mutual interest in social exclusion, the psychology of money, and aggression. When it comes to sharing knowledge and information, it’s truly a small world!  

Fourth, I’ll be staying in touch with all of you each day. Blogs are like sharks—if they don’t stay moving they die. I’ll snap pictures and keep you updated about my adventures. I can’t wait to share this experience with each of you.