“Psychological Perspectives of Sustainable Lives Post Covid-19 Pandemic”

Friday-Saturday, 4-5 November 2022 (Online)

Held by the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia in cooperation with the Asian Association of Women’s Studies

Background

The world faces new challenges with the advent of the internet and high technology. In addition to bringing innovations that make life much more efficient, technology also brings disruption. The situation has become more complex with the Covid-19 pandemic for more than two years. The pandemic was life-threatening and raised awareness of serious health challenges at the local, national to global levels. It impacts all dimensions of life and accelerates us to a complete transformation toward a network society.

While the pandemic has sloped down, people anticipate that life will not return to the same as before the pandemic. We are continuously aware of the possibility of new infections. Meanwhile, the efficient use of technology benefits the industry, strengthening internet-based and high-tech production and work systems. All change economic activity, gender relations and division of work, how humans meet basic psychological needs and seek intimacy, as well as how individuals define success and happiness. Social media brings opportunities to meet new people but also chaos; everyone can speak up and viral the issues that interest them in the name of freedom. But positive things also emerged, with greater representation of previously stigmatized groups, such as individuals with disabilities and non-normative sexual identities.

All backgrounds have significant implications in the psychological dimension of human lives. Rapid change and floods of information lead to stress and exhaustion. Challenges to meeting basic human psychological needs can have implications for mental health issues. On the other hand, openness allows for positive adaptation and self-acceptance. Technology also allows creativity and new innovations, which can help humans overcome problems.

Aims

The conference aimed to discuss and share ideas on what problems might arise, as well as what opportunities and positive sides can be found from previous experiences dealing with the pandemic. Furthermore, we also needed to discuss how psychology could anticipate, seize opportunities, and play an active role in preparing people to adapt, continue to grow, and be mentally healthy post-Covid-19 pandemic.

The conference also aimed to explore further collaborations with national dan international partners in research, education, community services, and publications on how to ensure sustainable living post-Covid-19 pandemic from psychological perspectives.

Theme and sub-themes

Theme: Psychological Perspectives of Sustainable Lives Post Covid-19 Pandemic

Sub-Themes/Tracks:

1) Education and issues of human development

The pandemic brought us significant alterations in educational settings. We now realize the alternatives to the face-to-face meetings, as we are increasingly being assisted by the novel educational tools and technologies. Online classes brought those who are far in proximity closer, enable easier interactions, as well as introducing newer methods of learning. In addition, the whole pandemic settings may brought changes human lifespan development in various ways. For instance, children and teenagers may interact significantly lesser with their peers compared to before. How do these changes impact human psychology? What are the relationships between psychology and these issues? This track broadly focused on the educational psychology and human lifespan development issues.

2) Social lives, mental health and well-being

During the pandemic, significant life alterations brought changes to individuals and impacted interpersonal social lives. Loneliness, depression, as well as various mental health issues arise within this era of social unrest. Although the pandemic has sloped down, there linger one important question: “what are the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the human’s well-being and happiness?” Within this track, we accepted abstracts that were broadly focused on how current pandemic situation may impact mental health and psychological well-being. We also highlighted some interpersonal, community, and social psychological issues that may contribute to people’s mental health and well-being. Also covered here, technology to ensure a better social life, mental health and well-being.

3) Work, production and organizational psychology

The rise of the startup culture, the increasing use of automatons, as well as the pandemic brought changes to the 21st century workforce. Various organizational culture in today’s world may be related to intergenerational interactions and individual differences. Human performance in industries and organizations may be valued differently compared to the past. There was also a lingering issue of organizational diversity and how to better manage such diversity. How do psychology tackles these challenges in the workforce? This track broadly focuses on the relationship between human psychology and the various workforce and organizational issues of today’s world. Also covered here, technology to ensure a better life in relation to work, production and organizational psychology.

4) Social discourse and political issues

In the current world plagued by pandemic, war, environmental problems, injustice, and economic issues, many social challenges arise. Such world demands an answer to a question, “how can we all live together within this social unrest?” This question alone may include the discussion of many social challenges such as equality in the social and economic dimensions, political issues, movements, and conflicts within online or real-life settings, various efforts to improve societal conditions, media discourse, and many more. This track focused on the intersection between current societal challenges, human psychology, and other interdisciplinary disciplines. Policy analysis and recommendation are also welcome in this track.

5) Sexuality and gender construction

The United Nations has emphasized gender equality as one of its primary Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is not without reason. Around the world, women still face unequal opportunity, unequal payment, not to mention unequal treatment. Within this track, we invited abstracts that examine the question of what it means to be a women and how psychology and related disciplines may intersect with such questions. Here, we may also acknowledge the concept of gender as a social construction, which encompasses topics such as femininity and masculinity, human sexuality, and issues beyond gender-binary, such as gender identity and expression, sexual orientations, and other gender-based issues.

6) Macro perspectives that influence the psychological dimensions of sustainable living

How can people live sustainably in the current world where the occurrence of pandemic and social unrest took over much of their attention? In this track, we invited abstracts which discuss the influence of macro-perspective factors such as cultures, sociological structures and networks, economic determinants, environmental impact, evolutionary forces (and many more) on human psychology. This track broadly focused on the notion of how human can live sustainably in today’s society, with regard to these underlying factors.

The Implementation of the Conference

The committee decided that the conference would not publish proceedings. Instead, the committee collaborated with the journal Proust and Jurnal Psikologi Sosial for presenters who were interested in publishing their papers. In order to be published, the draft paper would still go through a review from the journal.

Information about the conference was disseminated through the faculty and AAWS websites, as well as via Instagram.
The conference was presenting 1 keynote speaker, 6 invited speakers, and 13 parallel sessions with 4-5 presentations per parallel session. The committee published a program book containing the program/event, the names of key speakers, invited speakers, invited panelists, and all presentations in parallel sessions.

This conference attracted quite a lot of public interest, with the number of registrants as many as 545 people. However, not all of them were present. Meanwhile, there were also those who did not register but attended the conference. The number of participants who attended on day 1 was 330 people (screen shot zoom), while the list of attendees was 276 people. For day 2, there were 190 people who filled out the attendance form.

The invited speakers/panelists were: 2 from Indonesia, 1 from Korea, 2 from Australia, 1 from Malaysia, 1 from the United States, 1 from the Philippines, 1 from Japan, 1 from Hong Kong, and 1 from China.

For parallel sessions, the total number of parallel session presenters is: 58 people, with international presenters from Japan (4 people), the Philippines (1 person) and Malaysia (1 person).

Most of the non-presenter participants came from Indonesia, namely 252 participants (91.3%). Other participants came from the Philippines (2 participants), India (1 participant), Japan (1 participant), and Malaysia (1 participant).

The most popular sub-themes are Social lives, mental health and well-being (B) and Sexuality and gender construction (E). Meanwhile the sub-themes that did not widely responded by public participation were Work, production and organizational psychology (C), Social discourse and political issues (D) and Macro perspectives that influence the psychological dimensions of sustainable living (F).

In fact, topics that did not attract enough interest were also very important. The unequal interest in the senders’ abstracts may also be influenced by the unequal distribution of information from the conference.

It should be noted that organizing a conference online was very convenient because participants can participate from their respective places. On the other hand, there were also possible technical and network constraints. On the second day, the internet network from the organizer was cut off for about 1 minute. thank goodness the event went smoothly.

Evaluation

In general, the evaluation of the implementation of the international conference from the participants who filled out the attendance and evaluation link was good. Of the 190 people who filled out the evaluation sheet, the answers/assessments were obtained (with a choice of scores from 1 to 10) as follows:

The average participant rating of the benefits of the conference for professional development was 8.68; the average rating related to the technical implementation of the conference was 8.48; while the average rating of participant satisfaction with the implementation of the conference was 8.68.

In general, the participants felt that the conference was running well (well-organized and running smoothly), the topics were fun, useful, and provided insight in regard to academic and research purposes. The participants also wished that the conference could be held regularly every year.

Some inputs for further improvement of the implementation were:

1. Plenary sessions: allow speakers to display their own ppt to reduce repetition of “next, please”, allow participants to turn on the microphone during QnA sessions, QnA sessions are extended, material files are shared
2. Improving the quality of the image/video display on the screen
3. Provide a time lag from one session to another. The conference duration that is too long and without pauses can make participants lose focus
4. Activate subtitles during the event
5. Using the zoom webinar version
6. Promotion of conference events needs to be further enhanced, informing students from a long time ago
7. Promotion also needs to be further enhanced on social media so that more international participants attend
8. Added a sign language interpreter to make it more inclusive of deaf participants
9. Conduct conferences offline
10. Parallel sessions: more parallel sessions, extended presentation time, extended poster collection deadline, shared presentation files; confirming the do’s and don’t’s of the presenter, reminding the presenter not to present for more than 10 minutes, and extending the presentation time (ensuring time management and timely implementation).
11. Suggestions for topics that can be raised further: Digital Life and Addiction, Social Issues (eg riots against sports fans) and ‘Women, gender, and sexuality in Asian countries.

Closing

The discussions at the conference fostered insight into the various complex issues of women, gender construction and sexuality, as well as the need to build a sustainable life post pandemic in the midst of a very sophisticated technological world. Continuous multidisciplinary collaboration is needed in the fields of research, education and community services to ensure a just, prosperous and sustainable life.

Program

Day 1

Day 2