Q

thoughts-of-her-insanity asked:

I want to major in psychology, any advice?

A

cognitivedefusion:

liberatingreality:

Recognize that you will spend tens of thousands of dollars to attain a piece of paper that offers little validation in terms of your abilities to actually demonstrate an awareness of the human psyche.  The best way to educate yourself in regards to the depths of the human psyche is through direct experience with other human beings, no textbook can replace first hand observations of man interacting with his circumstances, as well as recognizing certain innate compulsions through self reflection.  The only authentic qualification is demonstration of ability.

I disagree. An empirical study/textbook looking at psychological processes in an objective manner is more worthwhile than one individual’s subjective, biased, often-misunderstood opinion on any given phenomenon. This is a matter of research vs. anecdote, and to emphasize anecdote is arguably a major oppositional force against critical thinking, which often entails a suspension of immediate belief/impressions frequently stemming from firsthand experience in favor of objective and systematic observation. The notion that anecdote outweighs more empirical approaches is arguably the antithesis of science.

I could cite a study or two that would teach you more about the mechanisms of anxiety, the processes which fuel it, and how to successfully treat it than talking to most anyone who suffers from it could. Same for personality traits. Or language development. Or how human suffering occurs. Or just about anything, really. It’s not much different from the medical field, where talking to individuals who suffer from cancer would not be as informative when trying to understand its etiology as studying it from an actual publication/empirical text.

Talking to individuals provides incredibly useful information in how these things manifest, what it’s like, how they struggle, building understanding rooted in empathy, etc., but understanding the more mechanical parts of them are far better understood through systematic research.

No lie, I am currently editing and revising a blog post about this very thing, namely, that people think they’re qualified to understand the mind and behavior solely on “personal experience,” or anecdotes. This usually only happens in the social sciences. No person–well, maybe creationists and defenders of pseudoscience–would ever say the same about the “hard” sciences. It would be ridiculous to tell people they don’t have to read a physics textbook (or get a physics degree) to understand physics, that all they need to rely on is their personal experience with the physical world. So why should psychology be any different? 

Jul. 17 2014
#psychology
108 notes

Notes

  1. bad-0mens reblogged this from badpsych
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  3. theforumcat reblogged this from lordtableshark
  4. kdawnf reblogged this from badpsych
  5. sarah-g reblogged this from cognitivedefusion
  6. lordtableshark reblogged this from badpsych
  7. coolcookie92 reblogged this from vulcan-science-council
  8. anonymityisbetter reblogged this from badpsych
  9. vulcan-science-council reblogged this from badpsych and added:
    Yup. Also, many things about human behavior, thoughts, and affect are counter-intuitive. And you only know that when you...
  10. gnarlierthanyou69 reblogged this from liberatingreality
  11. witchlamb reblogged this from badpsych
  12. badpsych reblogged this from cognitivedefusion and added:
    No lie, I am currently editing and revising a blog post about this very thing, namely, that people think they’re...
  13. pomegranatemagick said: Agreed. My sister did that and you really need a masters or phd to get a “real” job.
  14. liberatingreality posted this