10/15/2016 How do psychologists think?

 – Mind Hacks

Mind Hacks
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How do psychologists think?

I believe that the important thing about psychology is the habits of thought it
teaches you, not the collection of facts you might learn. I teach on the psychology
degree at the University of She樎eld and, sure, facts are important here — facts
about experiments, about the theories which prompted them and about the
conclusions which people draw from them — but more important are the skills
which you acquire during the process of learning the particular set of facts. Skills
like 궱臚nding information and articulating yourself clearly in writing. Those two
things are common to all degrees. But lately I’ve been wondering what skills are
most emphasised on a psychology degree? And I’ve been thinking that the answer
to this is the same as to the question ‘how do psychologists think?’. How does the
typical psychologist[*] approach a problem? I’ve been making a list and this is
what I’ve got so far:

1. Critical — Psychologists are skeptical, they need to be convinced by

evidence that something is true. Their default is disbelief. This relates to…

2. Scholarly — Psychologists want to see references. By including

references in your work you do two very important things. Firstly you
acknowledge your debt to the community of scholars who have thought
about the same things you are writing about, and, secondly, you allow
anyone reading your work to go and check the facts for themselves.

3. Reductionist — Psychologists prefer simple explanations to complex

ones. Obviously what counts as simple isn’t always straightforward, and
depends on what you already believe, but in general psychologists don’t

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10/15/2016 How do psychologists think? – Mind Hacks

like to believe in new mental processes or phenomena if they can produce

explanations using existing processes or phenomena.

I am sure there are others. One of the problems with habits of thought is that you
don’t necessarily notice when you have them. Can anyone o�ᵗer any suggested
additions to my inchoate list?

Footnote:
* I’m using the label ‘psychologists’ here to refer to my kind of psychologists —
academic psychologists. How and if what I say applies to the other kinds of
psychologists (applied, clinical, etc) I’ll leave as an exercise to the reader.

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6 thoughts on “How do psychologists think?”

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10/15/2016 How do psychologists think? – Mind Hacks

Dan Philpott
December 11, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Billingist – Psychologists want to earn a living. By focusing on billable hours and

serving a maximum number of patients they explore the phenomenon known as
solvency.

rj
December 12, 2007 at 4:30 pm

I like your timely idea of “making a list and checking it [via readers] twice”!
____
In the “critical” section, maybe add the stipulation that psychologists should be
critical of disbelief as well. When something is not proven one way or another,
then coming to either believe or to disbelieve closes the case, so to speak, which
might mean missing evidence that turns up later. Maybe make the default options
be likely or unlikely. We are human and will have beliefs no matter what, but
reminding ourselves of our limits may help us stay open to what experience can
teach.
Your question about skills particular to the discipline is a good one. Reading the
list, I had several reactions. The 궱臚rst was that these were good guidelines for any
scientist. The second reaction was there still might be something about
psychology that made these guidelines easier to learn when studying psychology.
We do study things like con궱臚rmation bias, for example. My third reaction was that
maybe the typical scientist doesn’t really keep an open question folder but tends
to 궱臚le things under either “proven” or “not real.” While this doesn’t seem like a
great idea, it does seem to be what many do.
____
I tend to agree with your intuition that there are multiple questions, at least three,
involved here: What is typical? What is optimal? What is taught?

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Adiemus
December 12, 2007 at 6:29 pm

While your list does apply to scientists of positivist persuasion, I agree with rj that
psychology students have the advantage of learning both about human cognitive
biases, and of being able to consider ways to approach intangible constructs. This
makes it a whole lot easier for psychologists to challenge a huge number of
health-related myth and nonsense than either the general public, or even the
medical fraternity. Often the medics can be rightly accused of not being aware of
the whole picture (a la biopsychosocial model), while the skepticism that many in
the general public have for anything scienti궱臚c prevents cogent argument about
‘alternative’ health.
Could you also add in that psychologists are used to drawing information in from a
variety of viewpoints before making any de궱臚nitive statement.
I’m not entirely sure I agree with your statement about reductionist – and
certainly not simple. I think one of the strengths of psychology is its appreciation
of complexity and tolerance of the need to ‘have further research’ occur!

tom
December 13, 2007 at 12:07 pm

Thanks for your comments, perhaps we can add this three items
4. Curious — psychologists are eager to investigate new phenomena and new
theories. This relates to…
5. Iconoclasitc — we aim [should aim] to collect enough evidence to overthrow
established theories, even our own. We should be open to evidence that
contracdicts our beliefs.
6. Kaleidoscopic — Psychologists know that they can [need to] bring a range of
perspectives, from di�ᵗerent levels of analysis, to bear on any problem
Rj, Adiemus I hope those go some way to covering your points. An extra one of my
own:
7. Dissective — Psychologists are analytic, obsessed with de궱臚nitions,

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categorisations and distinctions.

.

Quartez
November 7, 2010 at 1:45 pm

I think psychologist think in a way that is simple so that they can make people see
there point of view better by giving examples. For instance “love” people describe
love as a feeling but its really just belief in the other person. That’s the religious
aspect of things. A lot of people have trouble believe in God because of how there
lives have been or because they can’t see him or touch him, which also leads to a
problem with people loving him. It’s like a long distance relationship most of
them fail because of the lack of physical incounters.

Dee Bridgewater
May 12, 2011 at 3:36 am

I am a licensed psychologist with a private practice in Los Angeles so my

perspective as a psychologist is somewhat di�ᵗerent from the academic
psychologist’s perspective. I wonder about adding the concept of introspective? It
seems to me there must be a metaconcept to represent the overall humanistic
orientation that must be present vis a vis the philo- sophical discipline of
psychological thought. How can a psychologist gauge their own a priori
assumptions to try to arrive at an objective sense of reality?Could it be conveyed
by the word compassionate?

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