Has anyone ever made fun of you for your interest in psychology? The field is such an easy target.
Personally, I've always been proud to be a research psychologist. There are so many ways that a familiarity with the science of psychology can be good for you. Here I'll focus on one of my favorites - it can make you a better media practitioner and a wiser consumer of news and opinion.
I've often railed about reporters who don't read the original research articles that they are describing. They look at the press release, maybe talk to one of the study authors and perhaps even another few people, and they're off. Over and over again, they write stories that are more negative about singles and more positive about married people than the original scientific reports warrant.
My rant for today isn't specific to matters of single life. I've been following the Washington Post's latest project, the one they call "America's Next Great Pundit Contest." I love this idea. Once upon a time there were well-worn paths to the top of the press pile. The Post's contest, though, is based on the premise that smart, engaging, well-informed voices could come from just about anywhere.
I even like all the challenges their wannabe pundits have had to face. They've been required to write opinion pieces and blog posts, to name and begin a regular feature, and to engage with a topic that is beyond their comfort zone. Anyone can go to the Post website, read all the entries in each round, and vote for their favorite pundit. Bravo!
There's another part to the process. At the end of each round, before the voting is opened up to the public, Post reporters and bloggers critique the submissions of all of the candidates and announce their winner for the round.
I bet you already know what's wrong with that. I'd like to think that anyone who has taken a few psychology courses already knows - and lots of other people do, too. Yet the professionals at the Post, who have already made it to the top of one of the most glittering heaps in the MSM, apparently do not.
If you want to know what The People really do think, then don't tell them first what you think. Once readers already know who has been selected by the credentialed reporters at the Post as the best potential pundit, and have even read the detailed accounts of why some candidates were considered better than others, they are no longer voting from a clean slate. It would be almost impossible for them to read and consider the submissions in the same way that they would if they did not know the official Post selection. Psychologists and students of psychology know this from decades of research on social influence.
The judges' critiques have been a great component of the contest. They should have kept those assessments to themselves, though, until the public had a chance to record its untainted opinions.
