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…with Carol Tavris American social psychologist and author
One inspiration My mother, Dorothy Marcus Tavris, who became a lawyer in Chicago, in 1927, at the age of 21. She taught me that with reason, data, humour and persuasion, people can move mountains. One moment that changed the course of your career Reading the incomprehensible and pompous Talcott Parsons in graduate school at the University of Michigan (I had been admitted in sociology) and realising that either I was too stupid to be in a PhD program or that a lifetime of reading sociological jargon was not for me. I was persuaded to make the latter attribution and switched to social psychology, then a great interdisciplinary field at UM, which I loved immediately.
One nugget of advice for aspiring psychologists Follow your passion, not ‘duty’. Do the work you love, even if it’s not the work your colleagues approve of. One heroine Elizabeth Douvan, my mentor and professor at the University of Michigan; a feminist before anyone was using the term, who supported my decision to develop an idiosyncratic career.
‘Writing Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) with my dear friend, the world class social psychologist Elliot Aronson, was a deeply gratifying experience, intellectually and personally. Elliot went blind with macular degeneration shortly after we began this project – we both had to learn how to write a new way, through listening. I’m proud of how it turned out, and of the struggle that got us there.’
Articles on happiness, perceptual control theory, an interview with Daniel Everett, and much more... I Send your comments about The Psychologist to the editor, Dr Jon Sutton, on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9573 or to the Leicester office address I To advertise in The Psychologist: psyadvert@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9552 I For jobs in the Appointments section: psychapp@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9550
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One alternative career path A traditional academic career as professor and researcher. As it happens, I was able to combine my love of teaching and lecturing with my love of writing about psychological science for the public. One hope for the future That psychology as a discipline will resist the temptations of the biomedical revolution – which of course has produced important and interesting research – and remember that psychology has something to say about human behaviour too. For example, thanks in large part to funding by pharmaceutical companies, the field of sexology has virtually been taken over by the medicalising approach: sex is just a matter of getting the parts to work (and of taking
One great thing that psychology has achieved Documenting scientifically the Carol Tavris most difficult lesson for the public ctavris@sbcglobal.net to understand: That evil acts can be done by good people in evil situations – and a drug if they do not). But that good people will justify sexuality is also profoundly their harmful acts in order to affected by a person’s learning, preserve their belief that they culture, relationships and are good people. experience.
coming soon
One thing that you would change about psychology I would require the training of psychotherapists, of any kind, to be grounded in critical thinking, the scientific method, the basic findings of psychological science on memory and human development, and an understanding of the way the
One challenge you think psychology faces The current incentives for doing safe but boring research, and the dangers of research funded by corporations and businesses with vested interests in the outcome.
resource
One journal article or book that you think all psychologists should read Impossible question. William
James’s Principles of Psychology for writing style, prescience and insight; Elliot Aronson’s The Social Animal for its passionate, personal prose and introduction to the major concerns of social psychology; and Judith Rich Harris’s The Nurture Assumption for its brilliant, creative reassessment of the basic but incorrect assumptions of developmental psychology. Her book is a model of how psychologists need to let data supersede ideology and vested intellectual convictions, and change direction when the evidence demands.
confirmation bias can create a ‘closed loop’ of therapeutic practice that remains impervious to criticism. These measures may be irrelevant to beneficial clinical practice, but they are essential if therapists are to avoid dangerous, foolish or useless fads.
contribute
ONE ON ONE
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Think you can do better? Want to see your area of psychology represented more? See the inside front cover for how you can contribute and reach 45,000 colleagues into the bargain, or just e-mail your suggestions to jon.sutton@bps.org.uk
vol 22 no 3
march 2009