Be Humble but Recognize your Value - Interview with Dr. Larissa Terán
Dr. Larissa Terán is Lead Media Researcher at the Geena Davis Institute (GDI) on Gender and Media, a non-profit dedicated to bringing equality to film and media. They focus on making changes both on the screen and behind the scenes through data-driven research to mitigate the unconscious biases we all carry.
During our conversation, I learned about the important research she’s doing on children and media, research methods, how she figured out her path in life and her #1 piece of advice.
I had an amazing time talking with Dr. Terán. She was so inspiring and supportive. The research she’s doing at the Geena Davis Institute is really improving so many lives. Thank you so much to Dr. Terán for her time!
Her research on children and media
Dr. Terán’s research focuses on the intersection of media consumption, gender, and sexuality, and how it contributes to children's ideologies and behaviors.
“The effects of social media have a stronger effect on girls and women than boys and men. Not to say that it doesn’t have a bad effect on boys and men, but it’s just worse for girls and women. And this is just scientifically proven because girls have more pressure to look a certain way, to act a certain way, and that’s a lot of the time upheld and reinforced through social media. So what that ends up doing is making girls’ self-esteem grow lower. They end up placing a higher value on the way that they look rather than the things that they are good at, things that they are not things that they do.
“I did a study about the effects of teenage girls taking selfies. We found that taking selfies and posting selfies doesn’t have a negative impact on teenage girls, but what does have a negative impact is when they are obsessing over them, and editing their pictures. When they are editing their selfies and investing time editing their selfies, this leads to negative appearance concerns such as appearance anxiety, body shame, and negative appearance evaluation.”
Dr. Teran has an extremely in-depth and exciting research paper entitled: “But first let me take a selfie“: U.S. adolescent girls’ selfie activities, self-objectification, imaginary audience beliefs, and appearance concerns with Kun Yan & Jennifer Stevens Aubrey.
One part of her paper that I really enjoyed was the self-objectification theory. Objectification is when a person thinks of another human as a mere object to control or manipulate. Self-objectification is when a person does this dehumanizing act to themselves. They internally think about themselves as a tool or things to be controlled. This is often seen in the form of sexually objectifying one's self.
I would highly recommend you check out her research paper as it is very insightful and riveting.
What is the typical process for research that you prefer?
At the Institute, they focus on three main methods of research: content analysis, surveys, and experiments, which she defines below.
“I focus on quantitative research. So quantitative research focuses on objective viewpoints and numbers vs. qualitative research. At the Institute, for example, we focus on content analysis which is one form of quantitative research that is objective. It is when you have tons of content to analyze and you record things objectively from that content.
“A lot of times a partner [at the GDI] will tell us they are interested, for example, in the representation of black women in film. So what we do is analyze maybe 200 films from a given year and we record how many women are shown, what is the race of those women, what is the sexual orientation of that women, what are they portrayed doing, and how that compares with men.
“I also do surveys, like longitudinal surveys, so if you want to measure change over time that is a longitudinal survey. I’ve also done surveys where I ask young adults to recall memories from their childhood. And see how those memories affect them well into adulthood because I’m interested in that developmental phase.
“The last form of research methodology I use is experiments. So exposing one group to one form of media and another group to a control version to that.”
What was your path to success?
“I am from a really small border town. I graduated high school and I always knew I wanted to study journalism because I’ve always been really interested in reading, writing, and talking to people. I decided on the University of Arizona because it’s my state school. I didn’t really have the opportunity to think ‘I want to go to this college’ because coming from where I come from I didn’t really have that mindset. At school, they didn’t really push us to think about the best schools or to think about the beyond. So I went to college and graduated in three years with journalism. By the end, I felt like I wanted to learn more like I wasn’t done, so I decided to pursue my master's degree. That’s when I decided I wanted to explore and get out of Arizona. I ended up going to the University of Nevada in Las Vegas and got my master's degree in communications studies.
“It was life-changing getting my masters because it was where I really discovered what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be a professor, do research, and teach, but by the time I finished my PhD, I realized I don’t want to be a professor. I’ve always wanted to be at the Geena Davis Institute. And it just so happened that they were hiring when I was looking for a job. It just perfectly fell together. It was meant to be.”
Her #1 Piece of Advice
“To stay humble, and stay open. To keep learning from other people because the moment that you feel like you know everything that you’re so smart, that you’re so much better than everyone, that is the moment where you stop learning from other people and stop absorbing all that information. No matter how high up the ladder you get, the job you have, the money you have, or the people you know, it is important to stay humble and never think you are above everyone or better than everyone. When you talk to other people that are higher or lower than you, you will always learn from them. So always be open to learning from them. The most dangerous thing that people can do is to think they know everything.”
That piece of advice was from her mom, but she also likes to put her own little spin on it.
“To stay humble but at the same time, to recognize your value. Which can be hard to manage. Even for me, it’s hard. Sometimes I forget I have a Ph.D. and I have to remind myself. But at the same time, I’m going to stay humble.”
“Learn how to manage those two as you navigate your career, your life, your personal relationships, whatever it may be.”
