The Novel Environment Test

I walked in the room and the first thing I noticed were the empty seats of the people still missing. “A good, I am not as late as I thought” (a thought that regularly crosses my mind). The people already sitting there did not look very at ease. Staring at the papers they had in front of them, quietly sipping their coffee’s, waiting for what is to happen. Again I was unexpectedly comforted, as I clearly was not the only person who had never been in this room, with these people, having to do those tests I never did before. So there we were, about 12 people, all PhD students in the exact same situation. But still we behaved different.

First, there was me. After carefully scanning the room I waited for the person, who looked like she was organizing the whole thing, to finish talking to someone. Seeing the piles of papers before me and all the other contestants having similar papers before them, I made the right assumption (it turned out)  that this person was here to give some to me. Next, I went for the coffee (naturally) which I spilled half over the table (naturally) and then selected a corner in the back to sit. But after a minute or two I realized that one of my ears was not working that well and that it might not be such a good idea to sit in the back. So I moved to the front. I dove into my bag to find a pen “Did I bring a pen? I must have brought a pen. How stupid would it be not to bring a pen to a written test!?”. I found a pen.

Second, I watched another contestant walk in. He was slightly late (seemed not at all bothered by it). He said (not asked) that he first quickly needed to go to the bathroom and left the room again. He came back and asked for a pen or a pencil (he did not bring a pen!) from the person in charge. He quickly selected a seat (next to me) and then asked me for today’s date. “Yes, it is the 10^th”.

All the other people entering (also a bit late) went by in a blur. I was thinking about whether I should be annoyed or jealous with the behaviour of that guy. Me being shy and carefully observing my surroundings and that guy being bold and (apparently) carefree. And then I suddenly realized it. “I am in a novel environment test!” “So, this is how my birds must feel during their personality test.” As a proxy for the personality of the birds in my study, we measure their exploration behaviour with the novel environment test. It is a strange awareness, suddenly feeling like a subject in your own research.

Juvenile great tits in a novel environment room (Kees van Oers)

When all the contestants were in, we could (finally) start with what we came here to do: the PhD assessment. We took the first form from the pile and started filling in our personality questionnaires.