People may be inclined to see a correlation between psychology and charlatanism. But is it causal? And which phenomenon—working as a psychologist, or being a liar—causes which?

I suspect that the social sciences, either by dint of being overly dependent on theory, or by insufficient self-policing, double checking and corrective feedback, are simply easier targets for those with intent or willingness to use less rigourous techniques to defend their theories. I could go so far as to say that dishonest people might choose psychology as a career for that reason, but more likely they fell into it by accident, and when they didn’t get caught, continued with that strategy (of making it up).

I think we can give social science the benefit of the doubt, owing to its much more complex and diverse subject area. In some ways, the aspirations of the field may be too great, and with all the research going in so many different directions, and most researchers undoubtedly preferring to break new ground over retreading old ground, there are a lot of opportunities for bad science to slip between the cracks.

Great post!

I am a sort of moral relativist, but I think that a strong and healthy society relies on understanding, if not equivalence, between different sets of values. But I also want to go further, into the realm of transcultural morals and values. Not just abstract meta-values (the ability to analyze and think about morals and values), but common values about goodness and personal virtues shared between most, if not all, human societies. And I don’t mean just historical or primitive values, but those of new and technologically developed societies.

My real interest is to figure out how values of different subcultures effect the individual’s ability to survive, achieve and survive in society’s overarching meta-culture, where some values, if not necessarily morals, seem to change rapidly due to technology and trans-cultural diffusion (I term I just discovered today).

The reason this matters to me is that I am tired of the amorality of not just technology, but of technologists and business people, for whom money seems to be the only, or at least the dominant, form of socially universal valuation. I don’t mean by that that people only want money, but that if people are willing to pay for things, then those things are implicitly good. And thus people may be willing to engage in questionable behaviour, or to indirectly support it, in order to make money, with which they can buy those things that they personally value.

I think society needs more than money as a basis for universal evaluation of something’s goodness or badness. Because if anyone will pay money for something, that means that everything is valuable, proportionate to what someone (or a group, like a corporation) will pay, even things of contradictory purpose, and things which have clear negative or dubious utility to society as a whole.

I don’t actually want to find a way to build a moral framework for evaluating any and every thing under the sun. That is fruitless. What I’m more interested in is a system for finding those meta-values and universal values that already exist, and then helping people to recognize and affirm them, in themselves, in others, and in society at large. This can be obvious things, like the importance of learning, or honesty, or institutions like democracy, and less obvious things, like environmental conservation, as well as a lot of things I’ve certainly never thought of.

I’m also trying to imagine how to integrate such a framework into actual software products. The idea being to make products for people that integrate the idea of identifying what is good, and then promoting, pursuing, protecting and improving those things, individually and socially and even in business. Whether such products are feasible, or can prove marketable or profitable, is another question.

Perhaps it is similar to your desire to see values once again take some kind of role in education. Education, after all, is our most important social technology for personal development. Lots of software exists to enable and support education, both within and outside of institutions. But in the classroom, I think you have to pay even more attention to a person’s existing abilities. You can’t just present some highly abstract and alien (“meta-cultural”) way of thinking about right and wrong. People, especially young people, will be completely dumbfounded. They may even feel threatened.

The thing about education, software and other tools is that, to be successful, they have to be compatible with a wide variety of world views. As soon as you try to integrate some particular world view, if it contradicts the beliefs or expectations of people, you will immediately meet fierce and vocal, if not outright hostile, resistance. You can’t change peoples’ minds; you can only give them the opportunity to change their own minds. Actually, it takes even more: it takes incentives. Whether or not people are rational, they are generally reasonable, from an evolutionary standpoint. They don’t expend energy unless they believe it will benefit them, and it should be obvious that benefits are deeply and inextricably tied to what they believe is good, which is to say, to their values and morals.

I think the utility of education, from a student’s point of view, is whether that education will make them a better person, from their own point of view. Most people who drop out of school, I’d wager, don’t see themselves as doing something that’s not in their own best interests. They might see it as not in the interests of authority figures, but they probably already see those people as opponents, even enemies. People want to put their efforts into work that offers them a return on their investment. If they are not completely cynical, they will accept that some investments have a long-term payoff.

Anyway, I’m getting into more abstract issues. The challenge is to figure out how to get students onto a long-term track of being ultimately able to recognize for themselves that not only education, but moral education, is in their own interests. Kids are generally not interested in such things. They want short-term payoffs, like pleasure, happiness, security, fun, and social standing amongst their peers. If you can figure out how to start with those fundamental motivations, and arrive at moral sophistication (to say nothing of moral agreement), then you will be on to something revolutionary.

I think there’s still an interesting question as to why some people — particularly physical scientists — think psychology isn’t a science. One reason, I suspect, is due to the lack of lots of reasonably-predictive mathematical theories. For this, I blame the mathematicians! The problem is that the math that works for other fields (like physics) simply doesn’t work for psychology (as those many physicists who decide to try their hand at psychology learn to their chagrin).

Another reason, I think, is that many people instinctively believe that human behavior is beyond explanation and understanding. They believe psychology must not be a science because they believe there can be no science of psychology. Which is a depressing viewpoint, and one I think we’ve proven for over 150 years is incorrect.

More on this here.

I will fully agree with you that some goals can be more central or fundamental than others (whether you want to call them “life goals” or something else), but everyone has many, many goals that are constantly being juggled, some of which may conflict, and some of which will be more salient at any given moment. I’m trying to point out two things.

First, I’m saying that situations pull for different goals. The university kid at her part-time job, in the moment, will not be focused on “being a good student.” That’s the last thing on her mind unless she steps back and reflects on past events, future plans, etc. Our ability to self-reflect makes it possible for us to bring goals back into salience, but that doesn’t change the fact that for most people there is not one central goal that defines every action they take. Multiple goals compete for attention, and the situation can very easily tip the scales toward one or the other. That is what psychologists do all the time with primes. Priming you with food cues increases the activation of the goal to eat. Situations can do the same.

Second, I’m saying that goals can conflict. Two goals can be inconsistent with each other, yet still be held by the same person. We can see this very clearly with people with low self-esteem, who want to feel love and belonging (very central goal), but also want to be right about how the world works (very central goal). Because of their negative self-concept, they can end up thwarting their goal for belonging by convincing themselves that the person of interest must not love them because they are not worthy of love. The two goals are in conflict, and how it plays out is dependent on a lot of complex factors. Most people, of course, don’t have low self-esteem, but everyone has a vast set of goal structures (plural) that help them navigate their lives successfully. That these goals can often come into conflict is glossed over by self-theories about consistency and selective re-interpreting of past behaviour.

So yes, you’re right that seemingly inconsistent behaviours don’t necessarily indicate alternate personalities. (I’m not trying to argue for alternate personalities anyway! At the root of it, I’m basically just arguing that the self is complex.) But as far as I’m concerned, having done research in and taken classes about motivation, trying to root the self in motivation is an even trickier subject than trying to root it in “traits”. Goals are fundamentally dynamic, which means even more fluidity of the self than a trait-based model would suggest.

Anyway, I know you’re not wanting to argue about this, and I really did not write this with the intent to prove you wrong. I am just trying to lay out my ideas about the self in more detail. Thanks for sparking the idea to write about it in the first place, and thanks for being willing to entertain my notions even if you don’t agree with them

Furthermore, believing you oftentimes express a particular behaviour (i.e. high energy, laid back, serious) and actually expressing that behaviour are not the same phenomenon. An individual who switches from prioritizing school to friends and family after failing a test may not be expressing alternate personalities but a consistent trait of a noncommittal personality type.

Although I agree with many of the points made here, your conclusions make assumptions that require further support.

Yes, yes I have read that book! And I agree completely with your assessment of it. The intro suggests that it is trying to be some attempt to objectively assess the evidence and examine arguments from both “sides”, but Strobel then only ends up presenting one side of the issue. I don’t necessarily mind a book being biased in one direction, but it’s frustrating when it pretends to be unbiased. And you’re right—the atheist viewpoint is only brought up as a punching bag to be brought down by the interviewees (and these viewpoints are sometimes straw men arguments that misrepresent the actual atheist argument).

I think you also bring up a good point about getting “smart people to confirm everything” that you already believe. I’m convinced that books like this are written more for a Christian audience than for anyone else. Books like this make Christians feel justified in their beliefs, and feel like they have good arguments to bring up in discussions with non-believers. The books might be able to convince someone who was on the fence, but they would certainly not convince a non-believer who has taken the time to examine the arguments already.

Anyway, long story short: I feel your pain

I’m curious if you’ve read the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. My father in law lent it to me to read and I’ve finally gotten around to it in the last few days. I was very disappointed for a few reasons. I went into it with an open mind but also with the inability to shut off my critical thinking muscle. I thought, “This will be great! I’ve looked at a lot of evidence from both sides from all different sources but it’s nice that someone put it all together in one book.” WRONG. I was open to examining all the evidence again from both sides and seeing if I perhaps came to a different conclusion (instead of atheism) based on good evidence and arguments. Unfortunately, it seems to be a very biased book: the author is already Christian WHILE he’s doing the interviews, out of 13 interviews, 13 interviewees are Christian, and any evidence from the other side is only brought up to these Christians to throw out the window. Not once does he ask someone who thinks differently and asks them why they do – he asks the Christians what other people think and why. Ugh. Truly frustrating. I understand why my father in law thinks this book has strengthened his faith – Lee found “smart” people to confirm everything he already believes and presents counter arguments as “weak” and easily torn down – never once confronting someone who stands by those counter arguments. I think it’s unfortunate. Believe it or not after that rant, I’m actually curious if you’ve read it and what you think of it.