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Avo-Rein Tereping, Doctor of Psychology, Project Manager of the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Tallinn University School of Natural Sciences and Health

I have worked a variety of jobs throughout my life. Despite this, all my career shifts have been smooth. I have never experienced a personal crisis due to stress or concern about what to do with my life. In this regard, I have probably benefitted from always working several jobs simultaneously.

I am carried forward by wisdom from the former Director of the Riisipere Orphanage, Ago Teder. He said a life path should be shaped like a pyramid, not a long pole to climb. You may get high up, but if something breaks, your fall will be steeper for it. If you shape your career up like a pyramid, you have many more skills and experiences to fall back on. There is no abyss to fall into from the top of the pyramid. Instead, you can step to the side, onto another path that you are already familiar with. I have never knowingly made choices according to this wisdom, but it has certainly led me subconsciously.

My changes from one field to the next have primarily been caused by developing interests. That is why I took the leap from the field of engineering and technical development to psychology.

I started my first job at the Estonian Radio in 1962, where I worked in various positions for 30 years. I began as an operator, followed by a development lab engineer, lab manager and finally technical director. During the Soviet Era, deficits were a constant occurrence, and we had to be creative with what we had on hand.

In 1970, I graduated from the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute (now TalTech) as an electronics engineer. After one year of mandatory military service in the Soviet army, I returned to the Estonian Radio. Around this time, the University of Tartu opened up a distance learning course for Psychology, aimed at those with prior university education. I was interested in engineering psychology, as my job at the Estonian Radio lab was about developing stereophonic systems. I was fascinated by our sense of hearing and how people perceive spatial sound.

The change from engineering to psychology was fascinating. For an engineer, cause and effect are extremely straightforward: pressing button A will result in event B. However, human behaviour is so varied that by pressing A, you could end up with events B, C or even D. This uncertainty captivated me. I successfully defended my candidate of science dissertation (comparable to PhD) in engineering psychology. I had to do it at the Institute of Psychology of Moscow’s Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. During this whole process, I never stopped working.

While working on technical development at the Estonian Radio, I started hosting shows on psychology. I got to invite several young scientists onto my shows who are now world-famous, such as Jüri Allik and Jaan Valsiner. In the 1980s, when the topics of organisational management and work psychology became prevalent, my show often hosted Ülo Pärnits. He had also made the shift from engineering to psychology, having finished a psychology degree in Tartu. Eventually, I was invited to teach organisational psychology at the Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences. I picked up teaching while also continuing my job at the radio until 1991.

Around the same time, I received an interesting invitation from the Estonian Telephone (now Telia). They invited me to work as a marketing and business customer manager. During a time when technology was making great advancements, I was occupied in another field. However, my engineering knowledge benefitted me greatly in customer interaction. Then, I got an invitation to become a customer management director at the newly created State Infocommunication Foundation (RIKS). I decided to accept, as I was already familiar with the job.

About 30 years ago, Kadi Liik invited me to study organisational behaviour at the Tallinn Pedagogical University (now Tallinn University). I accepted and studied on the side while also advancing my career. Gradually, I started taking on Master’s students as a supervisor and accepting research projects. After leaving RIKS, I had the opportunity to contribute more to the university. I took on more courses and research projects, focusing more seriously on science.

Looking back, every period and career in my life has been interesting in its own right. The biggest change was when I went from ‘managing’ technical equipment to managing people, based on my knowledge from organisational psychology.

Teaching at a university has been similar to managerial work. You need to understand people to influence their decisions, which is fascinating.

My scientific research has focused on our sense of hearing, especially its decline. Sadly, hearing loss has become more common among young people due to the ways they choose to spend their free time. Loud concerts, nightclubs and sports clubs all have a negative impact. We also tend to turn up the music in our headphones to a level where hearing loss is inevitable.

My studies have highlighted how we do not measure our liking of music by its volume. Subjective factors such as authenticity and transparency serve as much better indicators for our enjoyment.

I have also researched subjective happiness and its relation to the workplace, or what makes us happy and how happiness is connected to communicating well-being and trust towards a company.

It has become apparent that subjective happiness is strongly tied to children. Those with children are happier on average than those without, and the number of children in a family often correlates with personal happiness. Of course, this is just the statistical data.

The joys of being a scientist:

• I am naturally happy when a student finishes all their tasks on time, but as a lecturer, I am most interested in the process of learning, or the point at which they understand the material. When I teach, I need to ensure that my students understand what I’m trying to say. You might think I should just let them figure it out on their own, but that’s not really right. It is a skill to explain difficult concepts in a simple-to-understand manner.
• Research is made enjoyable when I start to sense a connection between different processes and get to research my hypothesis using scientific methods, eventually finding out that I was right. However, it is also satisfying to learn that I was wrong. Refuting a hypothesis is just as important as discovering something new.

Career:

• Various technical positions at Estonian Radio – operator, engineer, lab manager, technical director – 30 years
• Commercial director at Elion’s Tallinn Telephone Network, and later, marketing manager at Elion – 8 years
• Service director at the State Infocommunication Foundation – 13 years
• Scientist – 46 years in total, with breaks in between

Education:
1983 University of Tartu, Doctorate of Psychology
1976 University of Tartu, Master’s in Psychology
1970 Tallinn Polytechnic Institute, Electronics Engineer