I had the wonderful opportunity to work alongside Dr. Irene Cheung surround the theme of moral injury in social psychology and what moral injury looks like in various professions/ life experiences.
We began with conducting preliminary literature reviews on research articles that spoke about the effects of moral injury in areas such as the medical field, war and combat, and first responder work. These past few years in particular gave much rise to how strong the effects of moral injury are in health professionals as they are constantly battling feelings of guilt when having to be in triage scenarios due to the covid-19 pandemic and not being able to treat the influx of patients the pandemic brought upon them.
Another theme Dr. Cheung and I explored in our research was how moral injury varies in different cultures. We conducted literature research on the topic in non-western studies and how their own unique events and occurrences effect their own feelings of moral injury.
With this being the first time I had worked alongside one of my professors with a research project, I felt as though this experience was a great stepping stone to my path of psychology research and provided me with a lot of skills I will definitely utilize through my educational, research pathway!
