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One nagging thing you still don't understand about yourself
The email edition of the British Psychological Society's Research Digest has reached the milestone of its 150th issue. That's over 900 quality, peer-reviewed psychology journal articles digested since 2003. To mark the occasion, the Digest editor has invited some of the world's leading psychologists to look inwards and share, in 150 words, one nagging thing they still don't understand about themselves. Their responses are by turns candid, witty and thought-provoking. Here's what they had to say:
Susan Blackmore: Consciousness
Paul Broks: What should I do?
David Buss: Overcoming irrationality
Robert Cialdini: Over-commitment
Marilyn Davidson: Lost opportunities
Elizabeth Loftus: Nightmares
Paul Ekman: Death and forgiveness
Sue Gardner: Dark places
Alison Gopnik: Parenthood
Jerome Kagan: Methodological flaws
Stephen Kosslyn: Satiators and addicts
Ellen Langer: Optimism
David Lavallee: Sporting rituals
Chris McManus: Beauty
Robert Plomin: Nature, nurture
Mike Posner: Learning difficulties
Stephen Reicher: Who am I?
Steven Rose: The explanatory gap
Paul Rozin: Time management
Norbert Schwarz: Incidental feelings
Martin Seligman: Self-control
Robert Sternberg: Career masochism
Richard Wiseman: Wit
I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to the contributors for baring their psyches and sacrificing their time. Thanks also to The Independent for helping spread the word. Here's to the next 150 issues of the Research Digest!
This special Research Digest feature was brought to you by the the British Psychological Society, the representative body for psychology and psychologists since 1901.
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9 comments:
How underwhelming. The great psychological minds of times and not on insight amongst them. One of them said: "In psychology, you are rewarded (1) partly for the research you do, and (2) partly for (a) the topic on which you do the research and (b) the methods you use". What happened to healing individual suffering? Making a difference to an individuals' life?
I'm pretty sure the focus here is on the top RESEARCH psychologists not clinical psychologists or therapists. Two different things, both important.
Great poll. So much fun to get a small window into such diverse group of smart people.
PS: Don't confuse lack of understanding with lack of whelmingness.
How skillfully they avoid revealing anything really personal about themselves and in many cases find a way to tout their virtues!
Ms. Gopnik's answer was quite disappointing. At least it wasn't self-promoting. On the contrary, it made me wonder what she's learned in all of her studying of parenthood. She was surprised by why we could love babies yet not want our young adult children with us, when they are utterly unlike babies--no longer wide eyed, filled with wonder and amusement, no longer dependent, but willful, difficult, uncontrollable, unconsolable? Seems pretty obvious.
Her comment that the goal of parenthood is ill defined seemed even weirder. In most cases, the goal of parenthood is to create a person who can do right what we did wrong, whether that's be happy, or be faithful, or be bright, or successful, it's the general goal for most of us if we are honest with ourselves.
Here's my stab at it:
In my research agenda I have become evermore convinced of the role of contingency, chance, as an "explanatory" event. It's now clear to me that many of our explanations about phenomena are simply ex post facto "Just So" stories tracing one path through an overdetermined--and highly random--sequence of events.
So, knowing that, why do I persist in making concrete plans for the future at all?
Pretty dark and discouraging remarks.
this is proof that REAL science cannot be underwritten by governments and central banks.
Perhaps psychoanalysis may provide insight for some of the respondents, especially those who avoided answering the question.
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