Comments on: How do psychologists think?

By: Dee Bridgewater

Dee Bridgewater — Thu, 12 May 2011 03:36:27 +0000

I am a licensed psychologist with a private practice in Los Angeles so my perspective as a psychologist is somewhat different 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?

By: Quartez

Quartez — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 13:45:16 +0000

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.

By: tom

tom — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:07:33 +0000

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 different 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 definitions, categorisations and distinctions.
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By: Adiemus

Adiemus — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:29:36 +0000

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 scientific 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 definitive 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!

By: rj

rj — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:30:28 +0000

I like your timely idea of “making a list and checking it [via readers] twice”!
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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 first 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 confirmation bias, for example. My third reaction was that maybe the typical scientist doesn’t really keep an open question folder but tends to file things under either “proven” or “not real.” While this doesn’t seem like a great idea, it does seem to be what many do.
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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?

By: Dan Philpott

Dan Philpott — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:00:32 +0000

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.