Good Intentions With Unforeseen Consequences: An Early Lesson From My Career This is one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the years as I’ve worked on education and health interventions in the United States. It takes a lot of time, patience, and humility to do the kind of action research that is necessary to understand a social problem deeply enough to develop an effective intervention to address it. ![]() I want psychologists to do socially meaningful research I want all social scientists to do that – to get rid of the stupid line we draw in the sand between basic and applied research, and advance knowledge and improve the world at the same time.īut doing that…doing that well doesn’t happen overnight. “Aren’t you the one who’s always getting on a soap box about the need for more applied research in the field?” Yes, I am. Lewin’s quotes, “there is nothing so practical as a good theory” and “research that produces nothing but books will not suffice,” guide the work that we do in my lab.īecause I’m such a Lewin stan, and by extension, a strong advocate for doing and disseminating socially-relevant research, some colleagues in the field have been surprised that I have been discouraging the rapid dissemination of social scientific – and in particular, (social) psychological – research on the COVID-19 pandemic. I was trained as a social psychologist by intervention scientists who instilled in me the Lewinian values of conducting action research that simultaneously advances theory and produces practical knowledge. For the past month and a half or so, I have been arguing somewhat vehemently against something that I typically encourage my fellow scientists to do: to disseminate our research broadly and expediently. I have found myself in a strange situation lately. This post is about, and for, the rest of us. Clinicians, and other essential workers, I thank you for your service. ![]() The work of clinicians is highly essential at this moment it is urgently needed to get us through this pandemic. When I say “psychologist,” however, it should be clear that I am not referring to the clinicians and other therapists that most people in the general public think of when hearing that term. In this post I will use the term “psychologist” periodically for the sake of brevity, instead of explicitly naming every sub-field when discussing points I think apply to multiple sub-fields of the discipline. The following is a guest post by Neil Lewis, Jr.ĭisclaimer: Before I begin, I want to start by acknowledging a major constraint on the generalizability of what I am about to say.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |