David Gallo
Science Student Council, Cognitive Psychology Representative, Washington
University St. Louis
(This article was first published in the Winter 2002 issue
of the APAGS Newsletter.)
It happens to all grad students: explain what you do and its value in 100
words or less. Sometimes we’re eager (undergraduate classes) but often we’re
not (cocktail parties). Sometimes we expect it (experimental debriefings) but
usually we don’t (Thanksgiving Dinner). Some of us prepare, but rarely enough,
and although a good answer to the question promotes psychological research,
answering that question is never explicitly taught in graduate school. The
question comes in many guises (What do you research? What’s the use?) and from
various sources (friends, family, students) but your answer always has similar
consequences.
What consequences? We’re all familiar with the saga. You tell people you do
psychological research, and they conjure images of mazes and electric shocks.
This narrow conceptualization reflects a long-standing problem: Many
non-psychologists don’t have the slightest inkling as to how basic
psychological research can benefit society. Perhaps we’re partly to blame. I
know quite a few new researchers who have difficulty expressing the utility of
their type of research to the uninitiated. This dangerous state of affairs needs
changing. Not interested? Think practically: Research needs government funding.
Our government answers to public opinion. The public doesn’t know what you do,
so where does that leave research?
I suggest we promote our research in a small but consistent way. When asked,
seize the opportunity to deliver an overly simplistic 5-minute spiel. Not only
will you be helping the field, but also you’ll be developing skills needed in
job interviews.
The main goal is to plant an accurate depiction of how psychological research
is done, and importantly, how it can be applied. For some reason, when people
think of, say, biological research, they picture a lab-coated scientist busily
peering into a microscope, with the implicit understanding that someday that
basic research will be applied to, say, curing cancer. In contrast, when they
think of psychological science (if at all), they don’t automatically make the
connection between basic research and application. It’s not enough to say that
you study how categorical information biases performance in an implicit
identification paradigm. People don’t naturally make the connection between
this and, say, understanding the causes of racial prejudices. Instead, you have
to make the connection for them; explicitly, succinctly, and memorably.
What should you say? It’s up to you, of course, but I keep the following in
mind:
1) Set the stage. Avoid talking about your own research in the first few
minutes, and never talk about the specifics. Few will care about your latest 2 x
3 design, and even if they did, you’d waste too much of their attention span
trying to explain it. You first need to introduce your field as a whole;
enthusiastically give them the broader picture. (The tone itself can make a
lasting impression.) Make sure they know that psychological research is a large
and specialized scientific enterprise, distinct but interconnected with other
scientific branches (neuroscience, sociology, etc.). Make the workings of that
enterprise concrete...I’m always amazed at how many people don’t know that
peer-reviewed journals exist, let alone why!
2) Use examples. Give them memorable examples of successful research
applications. Use practical examples that everyone can understand, such as
enhancing eyewitness testimony accuracy, understanding consumer decision making,
developing human-computer interfaces, and understanding the effects of media on
adolescent aggression. Stress that these are only a few examples, and that
psychologists apply research in countless sectors (legal, private, military,
educational, etc.). Always be on the lookout for new and exciting examples.
Newsletters maintained by research-oriented societies are a great place to start
(e.g., see the APASSC articles on opinion polling and traumatic events in this
issue).
3) Anticipate obstacles. The more "basic" the research, the less
obvious the connection to practical applications. Don’t hedge this issue.
Explain why basic research is essential to good science by stressing the
importance of experimental control and the theoretical generalizability that it
permits. By dissecting psychological processes at the simplest level, the field
is in a better position to understand how they apply in more complicated
contexts. In my area I like to give examples of theories and methods that are
carefully developed by basic researchers (e.g., memory tasks) that have been
successfully applied to other contexts (e.g., neuroimaging experiments, clinical
assessments of Alzheimer’s disease, etc.). To get a complete understanding, we
need both basic and applied psychological research.
Finally, keep in mind those grand ideals and aspirations that drew you to
psychology in the first place. These thoughts are easily lost in the day-to-day
cycle of graduate life, but don’t let that influence the bigger picture that
you want to create—both for others and for yourself.
