Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 12:15:35 -0400
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         TBN@UTXVM.BITNET
Subject:      trapping

I find myself agreeing with Julie and Tim and others who advocate a more
cooperative style of intellectual and social interaction, whether one
is talking about ideas or not. I've found that some of my best solutions
to difficult problems and some of my best ideas have originated from
rambling discussions with others where there is a "process orientation" and
a "going with the flow" feeling, and, together we work out or, as often as
not, just stumble into a beautiful solution to a thorny issue. On the
other hand, sometimes we'll walk away just as mystified as before, but
that can be richly rewarding, too--I just enjoy talking about ideas more
than solving problems sometimes, I guess. Again, that process orientation
rears its beautiful head.

Of course, all I'm saying here is that's what works best for me. I know that
when I get into a competitive "my point is better than yours" argument with
someone, I find myself growing defensive and unwilling to consider the other
person's point of view, in large part I think because I implicitly feel on
on some gut level that that person does not respect me enough to listen
to my views--nothing chapps me more than to hear someone say, "You're
100% wrong and I'm 100% right".

This issue leads me to my next point, which is what Jesse mentioned abou
divorcing oneself from one's intellectual ideas. I think in western
science there is an implicit value system that says, "Separate your
political and moral concerns and feelings from your intellect when you
do your work". In sometimes desperately trying to emulate its hard
science big brothers, psychology and psychologists can sometimes be
prone to this type of belief--in fact, I've noticed that research
psychologists are particularly reactive to the idea that they do
anything that can be classified as "warm and fuzzy".
I think that's a real shame because  (and here again my own bias
creeps into things) I think we can learn a lot about human behavior from
our own feelings, just as we can in a different way from intellectualizi
g human behavior. Besides, who are we if we divorce ourselves entirely
from our work? Are we then machines simply doing a task? I've gotten
involved in psychology because I *like* it, and I *know* (and feel, too)
that I simply can't divorce myself from my work--my work defines a
large part of my self-concept, and other facets of my self-concept
define the ways in which I carry out my work.

Can we ever be entirely divorce our selves from something as important
as what we do for a living? I'm not sure if that's possible. Of course,
one could argue that we should divorce ourselves from
our work as much as possible, but then the question becomes, "Where do
you draw the line?", and I think that's an individual question. Some
psychologists I've worked with in the past maintain a fairly strong
separation between their self-concepts and their work life, but it's not
something that I personally could ever see myself doing.

Ultimately, I think the most important element which binds these two
issues together is the thread of self-understanding and introspection.
If I reflect upon myself and what I like to do, I figure out that I
like cooperative interactions and dislike competitive ones, and that
I need to find a job that meshes well with my self-concept whereas
someone who doesn't feel that way can find a job that's not so related
to her/his self-concept. Thus the trick is to somehow get the
competitive folks talking with each other and the cooperative folks
talking with each other, separately. :-) Then everyone's happy. Of cours
this suggestion may be one that's "warm and fuzzy", but that's my bias
and I call 'em like I see 'em.

I think all of the discussion points made about the "trapping" issue
were very interesting and informative. Thank you all for sharing them
with the rest of us.

cheers,
       Tor

Tor Neilands, Systems Analyst
Statistical and Mathematical Support Services
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Disclaimer: All views expressed above and herein are only those of
the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University
of Texas, the UT Comp Center, and anyone else I've forgotten to include
in this disclaimer.
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