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Talking to Family and Friends about Graduate School and Research in Psychology

Kelly M. Carpenter & Suzanne T. Gurland
Clark University

Going to graduate school and embarking on a career in psychology research can cause a breakdown in communication between you and uninitiated friends and family members. Unlike careers in law, medicine, or even psychotherapy, there is no cultural model for doing research in psychology. TV characters do not have jobs designing Stroop protocols, constructing questionnaires to investigate hypothetical constructs, or measuring babies’ sucking responses.

Many of us can recount anecdotes of how our daily activities have been misunderstood – like relatives who think graduate school is for people who failed to graduate the first time around, and "research" being construed as an hour with an encyclopedia. The general unfamiliarity of what psychological research is and what graduate students do can make it frustrating to try and explain what’s going on in our lives, and misunderstandings can leave us feeling alienated and under-appreciated.

What can we do to remedy the situation? No intervention is likely to have your grandparents asking you the most intricate details of your latest attempts at hierarchical linear modeling, but the following suggestions may be helpful in narrowing the gulf between you and the important people in your life.

  • Extract the underlying question. Your friend’s question about graduate school may be littered with misinformation. Yet, he has asked the question for a reason. Resist the temptation to correct each of his misconceptions, and focus instead on extracting his meaning in posing the question.
  • Give a simple answer and avoid using jargon. Lengthy, sophisticated answers create distance between people. The critical information can often be communicated in very few words. Just as conference abstracts frequently limit presentation titles to 10 words or fewer, practice doing the same when you respond to your family’s and friends’ questions.
  • Find the common denominator. Certain aspects of your life (e.g., the people you talk about and the emotions that you experience) are virtually universally understandable. Your sister may have little experience with phrases like "my fellow Research Assistant," or "my qualifying exam" but she can easily relate to "Judy, who’s really funny," and your experiences of anxiety, exhilaration, and pride. These will be what your sister will remember and can ask about, giving both of you the feeling that she’s involved in your school life.
  • Include them whenever possible. You may want your mother to stay as far away as possible from your Master’s defense, but you could still invite her to come for the post-defense celebration or send her a copy of the completed thesis.

These recommendations put the responsibility on you, the graduate student, to remedy the problems of alienation and disconnectedness you may be experiencing. Lest you become chagrined, however, realize two of the major benefits of using these strategies. First, extracting the meaning of other people’s questions and distilling your answers down to their essential parts are important skills in all academic discourse. Second, the more connected and included your family and friends feel, the better you feel, too. As their questions and comments become more informed, relevant, and "on target," you will feel less alienated and freer to discuss your graduate school life openly with them.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2000 Edition of the APAGS Newsletter, Vol. 12(1)

 


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