A recent study conducted by a Psychology Masters student has found a strong link between eating glue as a child and running for the VUWASS executive while at university.
The study, conducted by Stephanie Quinn, aimed to find links between individuals’ childhood experiences and their later career goals. The subjects interviewed for the study were asked about activities and experiences they remembered from their childhood, and then about their career aspirations.
“It was a complete fluke that I found the link,” says Quinn. “The question [of eating glue] was a bit of a joke. When I was writing the proposal, there happened to be a bottle of kids’ glue on my desk. You know the ones—the little triangular-shaped bottles that say ‘Do Not Ingest’, and the bright caps you had to cut into to open it.
“I remembered that one of my teachers at school blew her stationery budget on glue because a kid, Josh Cosgrave, was constantly eating it—he also ran for VUWASS, by the way—so I wrote it as a joke example question of what I would be asking in the interviews.”
When Quinn put the call out for participants, VUWASS President Maximillian Harding volunteered himself and the executive to partake.
“I like to encourage the executive to actively partake an interest in the studies of the students of Victoria University,” says Harding. “Doing things together also makes the executive more adhesive as a whole.”
The results, released early last week, found that of the 593 participants, ten recounted having eaten glue as a child. Of the ten, nine are current executive members of VUWASS. The tenth has since resigned from his position.
“I can’t really explain the correlation,” says Quinn. “All I can say, however, is that the kids you saw eating glue at school… they’re the ones who run for VUWASS.”
The 2010 VUWASS stationery budget has $312.50 allocated to glue.