So it seems that the way of the future is to use work from one discipline and apply it to others. Examples include using evolutionary psychology and applying it to consumer behavior. I've heard of people using theories/work from computer science and applying it to psychology. Do you guys see a lot of this today, or do people still largely stick to their very unique expertise and not branch out?
interdisciplinary research
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I see plenty of folks doing both. In general, I think medical centers tend to be more interdisciplinary - in part due to the structure of typical departments and access to resources, in part due to the fact that I think soft money simply makes it necessary to do so. My grad lab (med center based) had active collaborations with biostatisticians, exercise scientists, psychiatrists, pumonologists, cardiologists, oncologists, geneticists, molecular biologists, chemists, etc. while I was there. Its pretty much the same at my current position. To me, it makes for more interesting (and more fundable) science. I'm in the process of doing some work applying machine learning/artificial intelligence algorithms to understand how drug use contributes to the development of addiction. This is not something I would dream of doing on my own without any collaborators (at least not if there was an expectation I publish more than 1 paper every 3-4 years...).
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deleted343839
I would agree that may "hot" areas are at least somewhat cross-disciplinary. This helps in the current funding environment that tends to reward large collaborative projects between established investigators, often across institutions. Stick the word "behavioral" or "neuro" in front of a different field's name and you might get something that sounds trendy (see: behavioral genetics, behavioral economics, neuroecology, neurophilosophy, etc.). Some of this is window dressing for work that isn't as novel as it might sound.
I'm not sure what kinds of insights the evo psych field will give us about consumer behavior, but no doubt they'll be ready to translate it into their own jargon and take credit for it.
Why the hate? lol 😛
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Research in a nonpsych related department is exceedingly common due to grant structures.
But if you are talking about commercial use of research, I do this occasionally and know a few people who do it for a 9-5 job. Everyone else extensively published in a non-clinical PhD program, and were recruited. I just lucked into it.
But if you are talking about commercial use of research, I do this occasionally and know a few people who do it for a 9-5 job. Everyone else extensively published in a non-clinical PhD program, and were recruited. I just lucked into it.
Evo psych actually has a mixed reputation at best, so that was rather restrained compared to what many of my colleagues would say. I think it has significant value for hypothesis generation, but it tends to rely a lot on unfounded (and often untestable) assumptions. Which the folks studying evo psych seem to have a very bad habit of ignoring or sweeping under the rug. Has some parallels to psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic literature in that regard, now that I think of it.
That said, I agree that much of the "innovation" out there is not all that innovative. I do think its often an excuse to do sloppy science that is over-hyped. That said, I also think the best and most important work being done right now is interdisciplinary. So its a mixed bag. Ultimately, I think someone pursuing psychology right now would be remiss not to consider interdisciplinary work if they are planning to pursue a research career.
That said, I agree that much of the "innovation" out there is not all that innovative. I do think its often an excuse to do sloppy science that is over-hyped. That said, I also think the best and most important work being done right now is interdisciplinary. So its a mixed bag. Ultimately, I think someone pursuing psychology right now would be remiss not to consider interdisciplinary work if they are planning to pursue a research career.
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deleted343839
Who said anything about hate? I don't hate evolutionary psychology. I just find it a bit... woolly.
But, try keeping company with an evolutionary biologist and a philosopher of science in the same room and get them chatting about evo psych. It's like the most magnificent and eloquent hate-reading you can imagine.
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When I read the thread I immediately thought of Amy Cuddy's research on power-posing and how she's using her research to help not only business minded people with confidence but also helping people in general boost up their confidence. Heck my social psych professor even had us "power-pose" before a exam to help relax us. To me, Dr. Cuddy is one of the interdisciplinary psychologists will have in today's world of psychology.
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When you all are speaking of evolutionary psychology, are you speaking about developmental psychology, in general? In that case, I always see the utility of developmental psychology, conceptually...empirically...practically in so many aspects of research and practice. The developmental trajectory is inevitable and one that every living thing follows...to gain insight into that trajectory can only help, and not necessarily harm research and practice. (I'm also dynamically-trained, so certain systemic or dynamic issues could take the focus off the real problem at hand, but if the clinician/researcher is focused, then those red-herrings are just that...red herrings.) Longitudinal-type studies offer extraordinary information, if that is what you are speaking of, psych844?
I'm specifically talking about how the principles of evolution organized biology and all of its derivatives. Essentially, nothing in biology (and its deravitives) makes sense unless you consider evolution.
So i'm asking, does evolutionary psychology have the ability to organize (in the same way) how we see psychology (mental illness, etc) Right now we understand every mental disorder as having particular causes, but we don't really have an over-arching understanding of why people feel anxious, or depressed. (at least not in any nuanced way)
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Isn't anxiety just another word for fear? I think we understand the fear response pretty well so am not sure what you mean about that one. Depression is a little more complex but looking at social rewards, attachment, and social shame could be part of it. Also, as far as understanding the causes for mental illness, I would say that we don't really know that as well as we know what causes depressed mood and anxious mood.
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Power pose stuff looks interesting. Hadn't heard about that before. Living in rural areas I have had the opportunity to interact with wild animals (moose, bears, elk) in their natural habitat a lot and can tell you they use non-verbals quite a bit too. My wife always interprets their non-verbals as less threatening than I do. "Look at how that elk is shaking his antlers at you. He want's to play." 😱 That is a real quote from her. 🙂
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deleted343839
I think evolutionary psychology has something to contribute, though I think we can conclude more about the highly conserved functions that we share with other animals than about human phenomena that we interpret in the context of culture (ie, many mental disorders).
The shadier side of the field's reputation does not come from people who are doing work on, say, the evolution of conditioning mechanisms. It comes from the folks who rely a little too much on adaptationist explanations and just-so stories based on assumptions of what human life was like 100,000 years ago.
Evolutionary and developmental psychology are completely different fields of study (though like all things obviously have some overlap). Sounds like psych844 is referring to evolutionary psych. I don't know that anyone (dynamic or otherwise) would argue against development psychology being extremely important.
See above for my thoughts RE: evolutionary psych. I think it is helpful for generating hypotheses. I don't think it can ultimately provide much in the way of answers on its own, but it can provide us with new ideas we can test empirically. Check out Rottenberg's "The Depths" if you want a good illustration of this.
Contemporary emotion research actually distinguishes fear and anxiety. I'm oversimplifying, but it boils down to fear = response to a real/immediate threat; anxiety = response to an unknown/distal threat. It obviously gets quite a bit more complicated than that, but the physiological processes have been shown to differ and they are influenced by different factors (e.g. alcohol attenuates anxiety but not fear).
I'm admittedly only somewhat familiar with her work (which is very interesting), but its a far cry from what I think most people mean by interdisciplinary. Most of her work seems to be bread & butter social/IO psychology, with some application to the business world sprinkled in. Contrast that with psychologists examining genetic moderation (molecular biologist collaborators) of neurobiological responses (neuroscience collaborators) to psychological tasks used in conjunction with advanced imaging techniques (physics collaborators) and novel trial-by-trial behavioral analysis of performance (computer science collaborators) and the distinction is more clear. I'm using a bio-heavy example, but there are folks doing the same thing with more traditionally behavioral fields as well (Sociology, English, Poli Sci, etc.).
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Thanks, Ollie123 (for clarification). You're so smart. 😉
