Interview - Professor Dr. Petra Jansen, Department of Sports Science, University of Regensburg: emotion control, career goals and women
// By Simone Janson
Professor Dr. Petra Jansen, chair of sports science at the University of Regensburg, talks about how to control one's feelings with mindfulness, how to reach his goals and why the glass ceiling really exists.
Professor Dr. Petra Jansen studied anthropology, anthropology, psychology and mathematics at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz before obtaining her doctorate in 1999 at the Gerhard-Mercator University in Duisburg in general psychology on the subject of "Cognition of Distances". 2005 habilitated you at the Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf in Experimental Psychology with the topic "Development of spatial knowledge". 2008 also completed a further education course in dance therapy at the Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Since 2008 she holds the Chair of Sport Science at the University of Regensburg. Her main research interests are the investigation of the relationship between motor skills, emotions and cognition, including from a neuroscience perspective. Her research has been funded in several projects by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and so far has been published in 120 peer-reviewed journal articles. Your future sees you in exploring the integration of the heart and mind. Prof. Dr. Petra Jansen is the mother of three adult children.
Mrs. Prof. Dr. Jansen, please briefly change your field of research.
For a long time, my main interest was the study of cognitive processes in humans. Cognition involves the processes of perception, language, thinking, problem solving, and, Including the processing of spatial information.
In particular, I was interested in studying the influence of movement on cognition as well as possible gender differences in cognitive abilities. Today, I am increasingly exploring the connection between body, cognition, and emotion within the context of embodiment research and the influence of mindfulness-based training.
Can emotions be effectively controlled at all?
Emotions can be regulated. Please introduce a small child to the cash register. It sees all the sweets and may start screaming because they would like to have them. Even an adult can hardly calm the child.
The ability to regulate emotions is not as well developed in the young child, but adults have mostly acquired the ability if you want something to react appropriately.
And what is more important: the IQ or the EQ?
First of all, the IQ is the theoretical concept that has been researched for a longer time. It is certainly undisputed that the intelligence quotient is essential for solving cognitive tasks. However, Checa and Fernandez-Berrocal (2015) have shown that emotional cognitive skills are also important in human cognitive control. There are reciprocal influences, which are summarized in a recent review by Okon-Singer and colleagues (2015): "Stress, anxiety and other kinds of emotions can be profoundly influential key elements of cognition, including selective attention, working memory , and cognitive control. [...] In my opinion, it would be good to get from an "either - or" perspective to a "and also" point of view.
- Checa, P., and Fernández-Berrocal, P. (2015). The role of intelligence quotient and emotional intelligence in cognitive control processes. Frontier Psychology, 6: 1853.
- Okon-Singer, H., Hendler, T., Pessoa, L., and Shackman, AL, (2015). The neurobiology of emotion-cognition interactions: fundamental questions and strategies for future research. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9: 58. doi: 10.3389 / fnhum.2015.00058
In recent times, there are always criticisms of mindfulness, eg by the feminist Laurie Penny or even in Connect to Silicon Valley, What do you think of criticism of mindfulness?
The criticism in the first article I think more on the "trend to self-love", the author in the end brings self-care into the conversation and the second article more on mindfulness as a kind of diet of the digital world.
Both do not describe mindfulness in my opinion. In my eyes, mindfulness means awareness at the moment. I can not find anything critical about this quest; Being with the attention where you are is what I consider an important goal for every human being. What I find critical is that many people feel that they need to do yoga, meditate, or attend mindfulness seminars. Mindfulness refers to me - and I stress for me - in addition to the presence at the moment to find their own suitable life path, it is a step to self-love. Self-love has nothing to do with wellness at all, but with the recognition and appreciation of one's own life. And I fully agree with Laurie Penny that, for example, for socially disadvantaged people, the path to self-love is not about "self-love seminars", but rather perhaps thoughts about changing the social situation.
In my opinion, we consider far too little the individuality of the individual. People differ individually in the emotional, cognitive, physical and spiritual development and, of course, also in the social situation and the cultural integration. Mindfulness means integrating these facets and being present from this situation. It is clear that here the paths are different and that not everyone, perhaps because he is currently involved in a burdensome social situation, can be on the way. This is also the case.
There is a lot of criticism of digital media. Is cell phone and internet consumption less mindful? And what about newer technologies like augmented and virtual reality?
Secured studies are available regarding the disruptive effect of jandy use in road traffic, not only when driving but also as a pedestrian. In general, the use of mobile phones while we perform a cognitive task, subtracts our attention from the cognitive task, and then degrades performance in this task. Now, in a more recent work, it could even be shown that only the audible signal, which has received a message (voice call or SMS), disturbs attention without directly using the mobile phone. From a scientific point of view, therefore, it is apparent that the hand-off takes the attention off. It is a great challenge and very difficult to examine this whole society. So it would have to be answered what it means that we live in a society that has learned the easy divisibility. Probably for this reason the longing for the eighth life at the moment is very great.
Concerning. Augmented and Virtual Reality, there are numerous studies that show positive effects in education, training and also in rehabilitation. In my opinion, there are still studies that show the influence of technology on the brain. This is also methodically clean and ethical in my opinion is not easy to investigate.
- Stothart, C., Mitchum, A., and Yehnert, C. (2015). The attendant cost of receiving a cell phone notification.
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41, 893-897.
Is mindfulness also able to achieve goals? What strategy do you recommend to people when it comes to achieving goals?
According to my colleague, Britta Hölzel from Munich and her colleagues (2011), mindfulness works: a) attention regulation, b) body awareness, c) the regulation of feelings by perceiving and not evaluating the occurring emotions, and d) the change of one 's own self. Since the ability to regulate the attention is a basic component to achieve goals, the exercise of mindfulness helps at this point. Many coaches also advertise with it. However, in my opinion, studies are missing, which can be demonstrated in a controlled pre-post test design and a control group.
I personally recommend people who want to achieve their goals, that you first have to look inside to see what their real goals are and what you really want to achieve. Sometimes this is very difficult to separate from the expectations of the environment. This is certainly the psychologist's point in me. Then the setting of realistic goals is just as important as the knowledge about and the assumption of setbacks.
- Hölzel, BK, Lazar, SW, Gard, T., Schuman-Olivier, Z., Vago, DR and Ott, U. (2011). How does mindfulness meditation work? Proposing mechanisms of action from a conceptual and neural perspective. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 6, 537-559. doi: 10.1177 / 1745691611419671
As far as career goals are concerned, women are often talking about a glass ceiling. Can you confirm that or not?
In January 2016 was the share of Professorinternally at German universities on a C4 / W3 professorship 17.3%, while he has grown continuously since 1994 - averaged over all pay grades from 7,5% to 21,3%. These numbers certainly speak for themselves. There is progress - but slowly. One problem is that the young scientists can not be appointed to their own university after their habilitation. Although this makes sense from a scientific point of view, of course it is difficult for family-related reasons.
And how do their own experiences as women and mothers look like?
My personal opinion of the glass ceiling is "YES - it exists". But maybe not only in terms of gender but rather on the human qualities of authenticity, transparency and honesty. In my initial naivety, I thought that it was about the pure value of knowledge in universities. Only slowly did I realize how much the university life is shaped by power and political behavior - and since there are so many men in leadership positions, of the male claim to power.
Personally, I find this to be very unfortunate and unimportant. When I said something,...
