‘Exporting’ Psychology

In 1974, I was a young associate professor at Purdue and believed that I was doing just what I was supposed to be doing — teaching large courses, working with students, and conducting research. In fact, I had recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct research on the effects of heat on aggression (the so-called “long, hot summer” effect). My students and I performed many laboratory studies in which we carefully varied temperature to observe the effects on human behavior. Then, for a change of pace and to test the generalizability of our work, we moved outside the laboratory and observed horn-honking by motorists on hot and cool days. As we expected, more honking occurred on hot days than on cool ones, and I presented these findings at a convention. The effect was totally unexpected: A major storm suddenly broke around my head.

At that time, U.S. Senator William Proxmire was awarding “prizes” — the Golden Fleece — to faculty members in any field who, in his opinion, excelled in wasting taxpayers’ money. (For more information about the Golden Fleece Award’s impact on psychology, see “All That’s Gold Does Not Glitter,” Observer, June 2006, and “Scientists Provide a Civics Lesson for Politicians,” Observer, December 2006) I woke up to find that I had received one of these prizes, which focused on our single field study while ignoring our careful laboratory experimental work. In essence, the Senator claimed we had spent the entire grant on this single field demonstration. In fact, that particular study was conducted without cost and used no university or NSF funds. But the Senator did not seem to know — or care!

The day after the original news story broke, my dean phoned and, to his everlasting shame, told me not to talk to reporters or defend myself in any way. I heard his message clearly, but I could not accept it. How could I let anyone — even a U.S. Senator — disparage my reputation? I did talk to reporters and tried to explain the purpose of our research. Many reporters accepted my comments and joined in strong condemnation of Senator Proxmire. Even the highly respected Washington Post published an editorial severely criticizing Proxmire’s tactics. The NSF, which had supplied funds that supported my research, was pleased with this outcome, and as a result, I was invited to become a Program Director there.

I accepted and when I arrived in Washington, DC, all was fine. But then Reagan defeated Carter for the Presidency, and within a few months my program (social and developmental psychology) experienced a 75 percent budget cut. Many of my colleagues seemed to believe that this cut resulted from members of the Reagan administration being anti-science. However, after meeting several of the representatives they sent to the NSF, I had a different impression. In my view, they had cut my division’s budget and program not because they were against scientific research; in fact, they actually increased funding for many other programs. Rather, they cut our funds because they truly did not understand the nature of psychology, that it was largely scientific in orientation and adopted systematic methods of research similar to those used in other fields. At that point, I experienced a painful realization. Perhaps this distressing outcome was, to some extent, our fault! Perhaps we (psychologists) had not done a good job of communicating the true nature and immense value of psychology to our students and others. Those thoughts, which recurred during my two years at the NSF, played an important role in my thinking about what we, as teachers of psychology, should do in our courses. Up until that time, I had truly enjoyed teaching (and had received high ratings from my students). But now, I began to wonder, “Can I do better? Can I focus more on explaining the value of psychology to students — thereby winning friends for our field?” This idea was stimulated, in part, by the fact that most of my students were not psychology majors, but were from other fields (e.g., engineering, science, management, and nursing). In fact, for some, especially the engineering students, our courses were among the few electives they could take. I found myself wondering if we didn’t owe them more than an interesting course based on our own expertise. Shouldn’t we also be communicating as clearly as possible the value and usefulness of psychology — a goal first stated persuasively by George Miller (1969)?

I shifted my own teaching and research in major ways, and ultimately these changes led me into a career path in which I have been, to some extent, an exporter of our field, attempting to communicate not only psychology’s content but also its essential value to people who are not going to become psychologists. As a result, during the 25 years since my “awakening,” I have taught students in every conceivable field, including those enrolled in MBA programs, special programs for executives, and graduate students in fields such as finance, communication, and philosophy. In teaching these students, I have tried to be a true exporter of psychology, illustrating the intrinsic value of our field and the many ways it can be put to excellent use by non-psychologists. After explaining why I believe this is an important goal, I will turn to some strategies for becoming better exporters of our field in our teaching.

Why Should We Seek to Export Psychology?
There are two key reasons why we should want to export psychology. First, it is the right thing to do. Psychology is scientific in orientation and approach but has always had a dual nature with science as one aspect and application as the other. Our field always has sought knowledge of human behavior in order to contribute in positive ways to human welfare. Thus, we have an obligation to communicate the value of psychology to our students and to help them understand the many ways they can benefit by using it in their own lives and work. The benefits of such exportation, I believe, are immense. The principles and findings of psychology can help students lead richer, fuller lives and attain greater success in their chosen careers. A few examples from my own courses help illustrate these points. The questions listed below can all be answered by the knowledge and findings of psychology. They cannot, to the best of my knowledge, be answered readily by any other field or body of information.

• Is using a cell phone really dangerous when driving? If so, how can these dangers be reduced — assuming people will not readily give up their phones?

• Is punishment effective in disciplining children? When? How should it be used?

• Why do we find certain characteristics attractive in others? Is this the result, at least in part, of our inherited biological nature?

• Are performance appraisals at work fair? If not, how can they be improved?

• How can individuals “win the battle of the bulge” and control their weight?

• How can we best resist the harmful effects of stress?

• How can we, as individuals, become truly happy?

• What makes people suited to becoming entrepreneurs?

• How can we resist the many persuasive attempts to which we are exposed every day?

• Should depression be treated primarily with drugs? Or is therapy more effective?

These are just a small sample of the many practical questions to which psychology can be applied, and the more we discuss such questions and explain the role of psychology in dealing with them, the richer the experience our students will have in our courses and the more they will appreciate the value of psychology as a tool for improving their own lives.

This is one important reason to export our field, but there is another equally compelling one: being exporters of our field will help us gain the friends and supporters we need to guarantee the continued progress and advancement of psychology. If my two years at the NSF taught me anything it is that we cannot take such support for granted! Each year, millions of people take courses in psychology. Do they leave these experiences as believers in our field? Many do, but many others, my experience tells me, do not. These skeptics do not believe we can use scientific methods to understand love, memory, the cognitive abilities of children, the effects of stress on health, the nature of psychological disturbances, or a host of other topics. They retain doubts about the value of our research. It is imperative that we reach these skeptics and convince them. If we do not, they will be the people who, in the future, vote against government support for psychological research, resist having psychology included in their local schools’ curricula, and seek to limit psychologists’ rights within the health care system. Can we afford such adversaries? My experience at the NSF tells me that we cannot and that we should adjust our teaching to reach out to these people and convince them of our field’s essential value.

How Can We Export Psychology? Some Specific Tips
Aside from using examples such as those presented above, how can we compellingly illustrate that psychology is interesting and enormously valuable? How can we promote its acceptance and use by people who will not spend their lives studying psychology? I have no simple answers, but here are two techniques that have worked in my own classes.

Bring in Guest Lecturers From Other Fields and From Outside the University
I often invite individuals from other fields to my classes to discuss how they use psychology in their work. They provide vivid examples that psychology is an invaluable tool used by people in many walks of life. Over the years, I have had guest lecturers from such fields as medicine, accounting, business, law, engineering, and marketing. Most are not professors, but they talk about topics of interest to students and about which they know a great deal. In my invitation, I always try to make it clear that my primary goal is to illustrate how important knowledge of human behavior is in a wide range of fields. The results are often outstanding.

Recently, a stock broker visited class. He did not talk about the stock market or about finance, nor did he offer advice on how to make quick profits. He discussed the role of emotions in investment decisions. His main point was that emotions often get in the way of such decisions and influence people to take actions that are not rational from a business perspective. As he explained it, one reason many people make common investment errors (such as rushing to buy when markets are approaching a peak or selling in panic just when markets are near a bottom) is that they let their emotions rule their decisions. As psychologists, we know that affective reactions exert a powerful influence on many aspects of cognition, and I often discuss this topic in my classes. But most students do not appreciate how strong or general such effects can be. As my guest speaker described examples from his own experience, I could see many students, including the hard-core skeptics, moving toward the conclusion: “Gee, there really is something to this behavioral stuff after all….”

I have been fortunate to team-teach a course with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Ivar Giaever. The course focuses on innovation and creativity, and my role is to describe the psychological aspects of these topics. Ivar, as a world-renowned scientist, talks about creativity in science and how it has re-shaped our world. Perhaps the best part of working with Professor Giaever is when he says something like this to the class: “Listen carefully to Professor Baron because what he tells you is very important. Physics is central — it helps us understand the universe. But knowing about people — that may be even more important to you in the future….” Truly, I am flattered, but more importantly, this shows students that my faith in psychology is not misguided — it truly is valuable, and this fact is apparent to intelligent people as far removed from our field as Nobel Prize-winning physicists!

There are many ways of demonstrating the value of our field to students. Guest lecturers do not have to be Nobel-prize winners. It is important only that they use psychology in their own lives and recognize its value and that they are from other fields and outside the university.

Use Short Cases and Exercises
I am not a fan of the case method of teaching. It goes against my own training in scientific psychology. Occasionally, however, I like to clip an interesting newspaper article and reproduce it for use as a short case (example or illustration is probably a better term). Recently, I presented an article dealing with the founder of a new chain of pharmacies in Mexico, Victor Gonzalez. He is unusual for a businessperson — he is high in extraversion, has a great sense of humor, and is something of a maverick. (His own family, prominent in Mexico, objects strongly to some of his tactics!) The point of the article, which students discuss in groups, is that the success of his new business is due, in part, to his personality. Specifically, I ask members of the class to discuss questions like these: “What aspects of his personality do you think are most important? Why?” and “Do you think he would have been so successful if he were low rather than high on these aspects of personality?” After reading this case, even the doubters from engineering or science begin to grasp the important role that individual difference variables play in a wide range of settings.

The main point is this: Short cases that illustrate the application of psychology’s principles and findings in situations outside the laboratory or university can be useful, and I recommend their use as part of our broad array of teaching procedures.

An Optimistic Conclusion — Of Course!
If we truly believe — as I think most of us do — that our field is not only fascinating but also tremendously valuable and useful, our task is a happy one. As teachers of psychology, we can help large numbers of people outside our field to appreciate its value. By doing so, we contribute to their future happiness and success and also to psychology’s future growth and development. Perhaps the famous missionary Mother Teresa put it best when she said (1975): “We ourselves often feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, the ocean itself would be less because of that missing drop…” (p. 58). I agree. Our individual contributions to the goal of exporting psychology may seem small, but together they do make a difference. The benefits will be real for our students, for society, and for psychology itself.

Recommended For Further Reading
Baron, R. A. (2006). Opportunity recognition as pattern recognition: How entrepreneurs ‘connect the dots’ to identify new business opportunities. Academy of Management Perspectives, 20, 1–16.
Miller, G. A. (1969). Psychology as a means of promoting human welfare. American Psychologist, 24, 1063–1075.
Mullins, P. (2004). Using outside speakers in the classroom. In B. Perlman, L. I. McCann, & S. H. McFadden (Eds.), Lessons learned: Practical advice for the teaching of psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 119–126). Washington, DC: American Psychological Society.
Svinicki, M. D. (1999). Teaching and learning on the edge of the millennium: Building on what we have learned. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Teresa, Mother. (1975). A gift for God: Carriers of Christ’s love. New York: Columbia University Press.