The Joy of Psyching Myself Out­

The New York Times:

IS it possible to think scientifically and creatively at once? Can you be both a psychologist and a writer?

When you look at the world as a psychologist, you see it as a set of phenomena that can be subjected to scientific inquiry: identified, tested and either verified or discarded. When you look at the world as a writer, you see it as a set of phenomena to be captured, contemplated, transformed and set down for others to recognize and absorb.

Although it’s often presented as a dichotomy (the apparent subjectivity of the writer versus the seeming objectivity of the psychologist), it need not be. In fact, as I realized when I left the world of psychology behind to become that horror of all horrors (to an academic psychologist) — someone who wrote for a general audience — that neat separation is not just unwarranted; it’s destructive.

…

It just so happens that the common wisdom is false — and we need psychologists in order to make that determination. What researchers who study ways of detecting deception, like Leanne ten Brinke, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, will tell you is that the signs people associate with liars often have little empirical evidence to support them. Therein lies the psychologist’s distinct role and her necessity. As a writer, you look in order to describe, but you remain free to use that description however you see fit. As a psychologist, you look to describe, yes, but also to verify.

Read the whole story: The New York Times