Conference Confessions: Notes from SPSP 2025

Regret Now (Vol IV)

Hello again, dear reader. It's been a while since we've had a proper chat, just you and I, and I'm feeling that familiar itch to speak my mind. I recently returned from the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP)—our field's largest gathering of both social and personality psychologists.

And let me tell you... I have feelings.

Photo by Pavel Danylyuk

I'll share some of these behind the paywall below because I believe I'll regret at least a few of the things I'm about to say. Warning: I'll be naming names and offering my opinions on specific presentations. Consider it my own submission to the Regret Project, just delivered in advance.

The Regret Project

Speaking of the Regret Project—it's that time again to share some of your anonymous confessions. The response has been fascinating and moving, and I still have numerous submissions waiting in the wings. For those who missed previous installments, the Regret Project invites you to share things you regret, moments where you wish you'd apologized, or instances where you'd have made different choices if given the chance. You submit these through an anonymous form, and I publish the most compelling ones because there's something profoundly human and often instructive about acknowledging our missteps.

In this edition, I'll share a couple reader submissions along with my own reflections. I'll also dive into my SPSP experience—what I really enjoyed, what annoyed me, and what gave me hope for our field.

So, pour yourself something nice (I'm drinking coffee as I write this), and let's get into it.

The first regret comes from Young and Stupid, who writes:

“When I first started my job as a professor, I was ambitious and wanted to build up our department and area, which was not strong at the time. Back then, the different areas in my department were competing for limited faculty spots. To make the case for my area, I counted the members of our area but purposely did not count one senior person because he was doing research far away from the mainstream. I undercounted to demonstrate greater need. It later got back to the faculty member I excluded, who I then had a tense conversation with. I regret excluding this faculty member (and not just because my deviousness was discovered) and making him feel like he was not part of the group. Here I was, a young nobody, telling a senior member of my department that because he didn't fit a mainstream mold, he didn't really belong to our area and shouldn't count. I look back at that interaction and cringe. I behaved like a real jerk and made someone feel bad about themselves for no real reason. I'm ashamed of my actions but have never apologized to this faculty member even though he is still around, actively doing research. Maybe this admission will finally get me to apologize to him.”

I don't have much advice for Young and Stupid because this sounds exactly like something I would have done. Actually... confession time... I did do this very thing. I am Young and Stupid (yes, I submitted to my own anonymous form), and I was that jerk. I think about that interaction often and wish I had more wisdom then—and frankly, more wisdom now. Gerald Cupchik, if you're reading this, I am deeply sorry. Our relationship has evolved considerably since that moment nearly twenty years ago, but I still carry that small shame with me.