Chapter 1135 - 842: People Must Recognize Themselves

Compared to Weng Pinting, Bi Yanling responds to attacks with "constant self-verification".

This reflects a self-awareness that is highly dependent on external validation.

Once attacked, Bi Yanling frantically tries to force those around her to acknowledge her pre-set [idealized self]. Each of her defenses is an immediate output of cognitive distortion, essentially a covert cognitive manipulation from a disadvantaged position.

If Bi Yanling were dealing with her students, she might be able to use the gap in status to make up for her disadvantage in self-awareness, forcibly getting the students to agree with her and completing the cognitive manipulation.

But standing in front of her is Weng Pinting.

Nan Zhubin sat in the audience, glanced at Bi Yanling, then at Weng Pinting.

Perhaps when Weng Pinting called Bi Yanling through Bai Qinghua’s phone earlier, she had already confirmed this cognitive pattern of the other party.

For Weng Pinting, the outcome was clear from that moment.

...

At this moment, Bi Yanling’s face was flushed red.

On one hand, she felt humiliated for being exposed in front of such a large audience.

On the other hand, she was desperately trying to search her mind for words to refute, but found none; even if she did, she couldn’t articulate them.

Thus, her face turned red with strain.

But deep down, besides the current resentment, there was a hint of — secret delight in Bi Yanling’s heart.

[Is that all?]

[Thank goodness, thank goodness.]

[Having heard so much about Weng Pinting’s past, I thought she could do something... If it’s just this, at most I won’t review papers anymore, enjoying the leisure.]

[If worse comes to worst, I just won’t take on doctoral students next year, just fewer people to do work...]

With these thoughts in mind, Bi Yanling even felt a slight sense of relaxation. Her rebuttals were blocked, so next she decided not to refute, just maintaining a state of humiliated anger would be enough to deal with situations of this level.

Turning big issues into small ones, and small ones into none, is the academy’s usual practice. As long as she maintained her bottom line, nothing major would happen...

...

This deep emotional change, Weng Pinting could not capture from Bi Yanling’s face while maintaining her lecture rhythm.

But even if she did capture it, she would just scoff at it.

All the previous reporting was merely laying the groundwork.

From a tactical perspective, it was used to tug at Bi Yanling’s emotions and deplete her psychological energy.

The real focus was yet to come.

Weng Pinting took a deep breath and said, "The above challenges Bi Yanling’s review qualifications and our advanced review system."

"And what Teacher Bi Yanling challenges is far more than just our review system for student papers —"

The topic switch at this point was very seamless. Only a few could notice that Weng Pinting’s rhythm had completely shifted from so-called system construction to a personal attack on Bi Yanling.

Even among the teachers sitting on the review panel, some thought that Weng Pinting stood up simply to vent because her junior sister’s proposal was rejected.

As for the few who did notice the shift — like the vice-dean — they were completely disinclined to intervene.

The PPT screen switched again.

This time, the content left the students in the audience momentarily unresponsive. The teachers on the review panel instinctively widened their eyes.

"This is a paper on emotional priming effects that Teacher Bi Yanling published during her doctoral studies — she is the first author, which is not in dispute. But I would like everyone to take a look at the correlation between the final experiment framework presented in this paper and the original experimental records archived in the academy system."

The PPT displayed two parallel, similar tables.

Because they were placed together, any disparity seemed to be magnified.

Weng Pinting paused for about two breaths, giving the audience time to digest the information, then raised her hand to point to the table on the left, continuing her rhythm.

"This is the experimental design reported in the paper. Two emotion induction conditions, positive and negative, each with 40 trials, totaling 80 trials. 148 participants."

She paused for another breath, moved her finger to the right, and continued, "These are the original experimental records archived in the academy. Three emotion induction conditions, positive, negative, and neutral, each with 40 trials, totaling 120 trials. 172 participants."

She left the two tables side by side on the screen.

"This presents a problem." Weng Pinting turned to Bi Yanling, raising one finger, her gaze sharp.

And Bi Yanling, who just a minute ago felt slightly relaxed, immediately turned into a stiff piece of wood when Weng Pinting released this paper.

When Weng Pinting looked at Bi Yanling, she lost her vigor, turning from wood to stone.

Weng Pinting’s speech slowed compared to earlier: "If a person fully understands their experimental logic, would they report two conditions instead of three when describing their experimental design?"

"If a person fully understands their data analysis process, would they report 148 participants instead of 172, or vice versa?"

Weng Pinting waited for two seconds. The audience either pondered or simply could not understand and therefore did not respond.

"These two discrepancies in data represent structural deviations. The experimental conditions change from three to two, and the sample size from 172 to 148 — these two things happening simultaneously point to a complete, reconstructed experimental framework."