An Interview with Social Psychologist Sandra Parsons
Sandra Parsons, Ph.D. is an Associate Teaching Professor, the Director of Undergraduate Studies, and the Director of Pedagogy in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Rice University. She specializes in the various aspects and components of groups in society, such as decision-making, identity and competition.
Jack Eisinger: Hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in. My name is Jack Eisinger, and I'm a research intern for the Seattle Anxiety Specialists. We are a Seattle-based psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy practice specializing in anxiety disorders. I'm here today with Dr. Sandra Parsons who graduated from Miami University with a PhD in social psychology, and is currently a psychology professor and RA at Rice University.
She has won three George R. Brown Awards for superior teaching, and has done research on human decision processes, executive coaching, and information sharing. Dr. Parsons, before we get started, can you tell us a little about yourself and what got you interested in social psychology?
Sandra Parsons: Sure. So I've been at Rice for about 12 or 13 years. It's fuzzy on the exact dates, because I started as a sort of a patch hire and that turned into a full-time position. And I've been teaching both in Houston, and also before that in Baltimore, and before that in Columbus, Ohio for about 30 years, which is hard to believe since I'm only about 30 in my head.
I really got interested in social psychology because people are so weird. People are so strange and unpredictable, and I was always asking, I wonder why people do that and why are people like that?
And I was also interested in trying to figure out how we could diffuse some pretty common misunderstandings among people, some things that come up over and over again that are problems in groups of people. And so when I was talking to my research advisor, an undergraduate, I told him I wanted to go to graduate school in psychology and he said, "What kind?"
And I remember being shocked that there wasn't just the one kind. I'm not sure what I thought happened to all the professors in the world who taught all the different kinds of psychology, but I think I had some conception that everyone was a clinical psychologist and then they had expertise in different research areas.
Anyway, he said, "You could be a social psychologist and study this all of the time." And I said, "Okay, well that's what I want to do." So my interest in psychology has been since forever, but specifically social psychology since about middle way through my undergraduate years. So here I am.
Jack Eisinger: That's really cool. And by the way, before coming to college, that's also what I thought, you just went to grad school in psychology.
Sandra Parsons: That's right. I had no idea.
Jack Eisinger: Somewhat common. All right. So let's get into the questions. Question one, of your published studies finds the impact of professional coaching on university students. I was hoping you could explain a little bit to our audience what leadership coaching is, and is it something that is practical and useful for the everyday college student?
Sandra Parsons: Absolutely. So we're really lucky, because this study actually took place at Rice University in partnership with The Doerr Institute. And so we have incredible resources, incredible funding with professional coaches who teach undergraduates how to develop their leadership tools, the idea being that everyone can be a leader.
Though I have to say we are very specifically talking about Rice University undergraduates. So it's not literally everyone in the world can be a great leader, but really focusing on the kinds of students that we have in this kind of institutional space.
So the professional coaching really is about looking at the literature on successful leadership tools, and helping students develop their leadership goals. So with The Doerr Institute specifically, it's very much tailored towards what kind of leadership roles students are interested in, what kind of leadership skills they want to develop, what kind of personal goals they have taking into account their culture of origin, but also the culture that they want to practice more leadership roles in. Because the way that you successfully lead is of course bound by cultural expectations and cultural norms.
And I would say that absolutely, this is something that is practical and useful for everyday college students. I think that it is fairly rare for one to be in professional spaces where there's no leadership. There is almost always some opportunity. Even if it's just the leader of your very small team at whatever level of job that you're doing, there are different tasks that come along where someone has to sort of take charge. And so I think having all of our students have some ability to harness those skills and refine those tools to better lead is wonderful. It's a tremendous asset.
Jack Eisinger: Yeah, I definitely agree, and I definitely have met some of the people that may have participated in those studies, and I definitely agree with that assessment. My next question, regarding teams and social psychology, what are some suggestions you have for those teams? Whether it's business teams or just as something as simple as college students working on a class project. What are some ways that people can foster a better experience and have more positive outcomes in these situations?
Sandra Parsons: I love this question because it really gets to the heart of one of the things that I went into my graduate schooling thinking I wanted to know more about. I talked before about how people were weird, which is clearly a driving force. But the other thing that I was really focused on is why is it that we do so much group work and yet still haven't figured out how to do it well? And so I studied a lot about how could we make that experience better.
So I think that number one, you have to define what the roles are in the group, so who's going to be in charge of what. There are some ways that tacitly develops. So that develops not necessarily on explicit understandings, though in my opinion, it's better if you spend some time being explicit about that. Because if you leave it to unspoken estimations of what other people are going to do, it takes much more time to develop those efficiently.
But also, what is the product going to be and how will people be held accountable for that product? Because one of the things that we know that happens is that when groups of people get together, it's very easy to imagine that other people will take on the bulk of the task. And we call that social loafing, the idea that if there are many of us doing it, then all of us can kind of relax a bit.
And the usual way of doing business in a group like that is to have a group product that just pops out the other side and is assessed by some external force like your professor, or the customer buying the product, or whatever it is, with little attention to who in the group was responsible for which parts of it. And when it's set up like that, then that means that people can take advantage of the shared workload and not put in their all.
So I think having some rules of holding each other accountable, either within the group where everyone agrees that these are how we're going to hold each other accountable to these, or asking the outside entity like your professor to set up some sort of a rubric or expectations about how to define whose work was what.
I also think it's important to think about, is this even a group task? Why are you doing this in a group? And I think for the group to understand why they have come together to do this product or this project together is vital.
So for example, one of the things that we assume is that a group will do a better job on a task. That if we put lots of heads on it, we'll have an even better outcome. But that's assuming that there's some either really hard lift, something that one of us couldn't do by ourselves because it's just too much work to do alone, or because we need lots of different people thinking about it differently.
And so we've already talked about the first problem. If we're doing it all together because we know that it's just a really hard lift for any singular person to do, then we better make sure that this is something we can each contribute to and be held accountable for each of our individual outputs.
If it's the other thing where we're coming together because of a diversity of skillset, then we need to make sure everyone knows in that group who is really good at what. If we don't do that, we run the risk of having everybody focus on the shared information and not talk about the stuff that they're uniquely qualified to talk about.
And so we really waste that resource, and that can potentially slow down the process and also tamp down the creativity and uniqueness of the product that you're trying to get, which is really actively working against having a group of people do it.
So trying to figure out, who's going to be responsible for what? How to maximize individual output, making sure that it's a group task, and also agreeing on how you're going to communicate about. They're all absolutely vital. And I think that those pieces of advice suit all kinds of situations. Classroom, outside of classroom, business context, really anytime you get a group of people to do something.
Jack Eisinger: Yeah. No, that's a really good answer. I've definitely been on both sides of social loafing, both in school and in jobs.
Sandra Parsons: Absolutely.
Jack Eisinger: So I completely agree with that. No one really wins usually in those situations.
Sandra Parsons: That's right. And it's such a shame, because group processes should be a really good tool for getting something done. We have so many big tasks that we have to do, and having more people work on it absolutely means more buy-in. People feel like they're involved in the process.
And so we want to continue to use groups for sure. But if we're not utilizing them to the best ability based on what we know, then like you said, nobody wins. It's just an unpleasant process and you end up with less than fabulous product. It's certainly less fabulous than it could have been if everybody had been doing their best work. So it's something we need to think about whenever we're in groups.
Jack Eisinger: To continue with groups, in teams or groups, can you talk a little bit about in group competition or in-group threats, and what would be the best way for people to handle these situations in the healthiest way possible?
Sandra Parsons: Absolutely. So I often talk about in-group versus out-group threats, usually talking about how we develop our identities in part around the people who are in our groups and by what we are not. And so we develop this strong in-group bond, and it is sort of implied whenever we're in a group that there is some out-group that is different from us, and also by definition not quite as good as us. We prefer our in-group members over our out-group members generally speaking. And there's lots of research with that in-group bias.
So then when we start looking at, well, what happens when there's actual competition from inside the group, which we know happens of course, or some sort of threat to identity that comes from inside the group.
Because it is a somewhat unexpected source of conflict, it can be very devastating. So if you think about how you know that you and your people are cohesive and connected, and you know that you're in us and that those are thems, and one of the things that makes you a good us is that you were willing to fight for resources or compete for resources with the other us against the other thems, that's kind of a comfortable space to be in, because we're used to that conception of things.
So when someone threatens your membership or when someone competes for a place within the group, it can be kind of scary because it threatens your idea of this cohesiveness, and it threatens your idea of what makes the us different from the thems.
So it can be particular threatening, and particularly insidious and difficult to deal with. And I think the best way to deal with that is to have honest conversations and to understand why it is that it's so anxiety provoking to have that threat come from someone you thought of as an us or part of your in-group.
I think it's also useful to think about your definition of your in-group. Why is that your in-group, why is that important to you? Why is that part of your identity formation process? And then perhaps use that to reconceptualize what that in-group threat means.
I say this because I know it's not always going to be easy to just say, "Well, let's just talk about it and resolve it, and then we'll all be fine again." The resolution might be that we have to redefine how we think about ourselves. Maybe we decide that we aren't really part of that group in that context, and we have to redefine where the boundaries are. And anytime we're doing that, that is going to be anxiety provoking and difficult, and we just have to give ourselves the time and space to have those conversations and decide, can we both still be in the group? Is this some irreconcilable difference? Do I need to think about my identity differently? Do I need to maybe join another group with respect to this task?
The good thing about in-group and out-group memberships is that they are often very fluid, that they're based on some expectation or some either internal or external expectation, or situational factor that's malleable. So we can decide to change the membership or we can decide to reconceive how we think about things.
Jack Eisinger: Yeah, it can be a difficult thing to balance. The larger the group, typically the more power that group has. But at the same time, the larger the group gets, the more divisions there are going to be over little idiosyncrasies or bigger things.
Sandra Parsons: Absolutely. And the more potential there is to see factions within a group. We recognize when we're in a group how heterogeneous the group is, and we tend to think that the out-group is very homogenous. But that heterogeneity while wonderful within our in-group, we also have to appreciate that's going to be the source of conflict sometimes, because we aren't all the same. We aren't all going to think about things the same way.
Jack Eisinger: Right. Just to transition to teaching a little bit, what is the biggest takeaway you want your students to have in your social psychology and positive psychology courses?
Sandra Parsons: So we'll start with the social psychology. So usually, it ends up being that I meet students early in their four years for my social psychology class. So I'm usually talking to first years and second years, with a few older students sprinkled in who are trying to get distribution credit.
And so I have the opportunity to talk to them at the beginning of their four years of college, which is a really exciting time. There's a lot of change and a lot of potentially tumult going on, where they're trying to find their way and trying to figure out who they're going to be in their new, more adult lives.
So one of the things that I want to make sure my students know is that in many cases, they have the power to change the situation. So social psychology is all about how the situation affects the way we think, feel, and behave. And that means that when we get into these spaces where there's conflict, or misunderstanding, or frustration even leading for example to violence, that those are coming out of situations that we've socially constructed, that we have somehow agreed as a group on the certain ways of doing things. We have certain normative reactions. We have certain expectations about what others are going to do.
And because they're socially constructed, that means that they can be socially reconstructed. So if something isn't working, we can decide collectively to change those situational variables to create a new situation that better serves us.
So specifically, thinking about times when we see conflict between people. It's often because there's some misunderstanding. I see the situation one way, and you're seeing the situation a totally different way. And once I understand your perspective, I can understand your behavior. So if we can come to some shared understanding of you're reacting to your construal of the situation over here, and I think it's supposed to be like this. And when you don't do it right, I get mad.
But what if we came to it with, "Okay, here's what I thought the ground rules were. This is what I thought was the environment we were interacting in. And I want to hear more about what you thought, and then we can come to a compromise."
One of the things that I worry about is that this makes it sound like it's very Pollyanna. "All we have to do is just change our expectations and the world will change." And obviously, I don't think we're going to get rid of all of the world's strife just by changing the way we construct things. I also think there are some cultural barriers where we can't just say everybody has the agency or the power to change the situation. That's just not true either.
But I do think that opening up students' minds to the idea that they don't have to go with the flow the way that the flow has been constructed before, but they can create a new flow. We get to create new places for us to be in. And especially at this age with this exciting group of students, you all will have the power. You do have the power.
So looking for ways to change those understandings and clear up misunderstandings I think is a really, really powerful tool that students can have and that humans can have to make the world a more harmonious type of place.
I often like to use the example of queuing cultures versus massing cultures. So there's some cultures where we stand in line, and then there are others where we kind of crowd around for our turn for something. And if you're from a queuing up and you think that you're supposed to stand in line for something, and you go to a place where they're crowding around, can be very frustrating, because you're wondering why aren't they doing what they're supposed to do? Why are they taking mine before? It's not their turn, right?
Likewise, if you come from a crowding place and you go and you stand in line, you're wondering, "Why are these people standing in this long line? Why don't they just crowd around and grab what they need?"
And you can see there's a lot of conflict there, because both sides are like, "What are you doing? You're not doing it right." But if you just explain to the other group, "This is what I can see the situation to be," and the other group is like, "Oh, this is how I thought it was supposed to be," then you can at least understand each other and understand where the differences are coming from, and potentially really tamp down that anger response that causes so many problems between people.
So long story short, power to change the situation. I want students to understand that they're not just being pushed along through their daily activities without any agency.
Positive psychology is actually fairly similar in terms of a lesson, but what I want people to understand first and foremost is that the goal of positive psychology is improved wellbeing. That does not mean improved happiness in the sense that everyone should be skipping through the tulips, and singing and dancing. I think about Shiny Happy People from the R.E.M. song, which is a reference probably most people don't get anymore, but I'm like, "I'm going to keep talking about it until everyone knows who Michael Stipe is."
The goal is not shiny, happy people, and that shouldn't be the goal. And I think that we are sold, especially in western societies, that is the goal. And then if we're not feeling happy in the sense of skipping through the tulips, that we're not doing the right kinds of things and something has to change.
So with positive psychology, I want people to understand that happiness is a very broad multi-tiered or multi-pillared kind of conception that has multi-facets to it, multiple facets to it. And it involves connection with other people, certainly positive feeling, meaningful work, connection, all sorts of really rich and interesting things that come with effort.
So the takeaway message for positive psychology is to reconceive happy as a much more complex construct that it has lots of pieces to it, and that it's changeable. That we do have the power to change our wellbeing, but it's going to take effort.
So it is not that we are going to magically either be happy or not happy, and if we're not happy, we have to keep trying to find this magic pill that will make us happy again. It's that we need to conceive of happiness differently, and then very consciously choose activities that support more of the good stuff. And so actively working on that, just like you would exercise every day or eat good food every day. It's not something you do once and then you checked it off your list. It's something every day, you have to pay attention to and nurture.
Jack Eisinger: Yeah. I think if I had to combine the two into one, social psychology and positive psychology, it's the need to break down the things that happen in your life. That it is not so simple that you just can follow the flow of the group, or that you're just going to do whatever you want or just feel like, and you're going to be happy. That there are things that you need to consciously think about and put effort into.
Sandra Parsons: I think that's absolutely right, Jack.
Jack Eisinger: All right. Okay, perfect. Question number five. Can you talk a little bit about stereotyping? Why do people do it? Is it an automatic process? And what are some ways that individuals... And I was particularly interested as well in governments. What can they do to try to combat this practice?
Sandra Parsons: That is a very interesting and provocative question. So let me take it apart one at a time. So let me talk about stereotyping.
So stereotyping is when we decide that there are boxes that people or things can fit into. Clearly, what you're thinking about is people stereotyping. So let's talk about that. That we decide that we know what people are like, based on certain kinds of features, we can put them in these different categories.
And it is necessary. It is automatic. It is part of the way that our brain makes order out of a lot of what would be chaotic information if we didn't do otherwise.
So we are in some sense what's called cognitive misers. We want to figure out the easiest way to tackle the largest amount of information possible, and our brains are constantly trying to organize those things into chunks of information.
If we didn't do that, the world would be full of way too much information. We would have trouble functioning even in the most simple tasks, because everything would be new to us constantly, and disordered, and uncomfortable, and not very pleasant.
And so what we do is we make these categories of people. And then once we know what we think we know about people, these stereotypes, then those help us decide how to behave. So we create these stereotypes, we create these boxes, put people in those based on some very quick judgment that we have, and some very little information often we have about those people in those groups. And then we behave and act towards them to reinforce those stereotypes.
So having stereotypes is not actually the problem, and it's a good thing it's not a problem because it is an automatic process. We're not going to be able to get rid of stereotyping. It's something that we do naturally.
The problem comes of course, when we have these assumptions that lead to discrimination and to prejudice. So it's when we have negative stereotypes, and also that we believe that they're immutable, that it's unchangeable, and that there is a fundamental difference in a group of people that is insurmountable, and that we can't be convinced otherwise.
And this actually goes back to the discussion we were having before about in-groups and out-groups. We think we know something about the out-group, because we have a stereotype about them. And so whenever we see behavior from an out-group member, we imagine that that supports the stereotype. And it's very hard for us to remember times when it refutes the stereotype, and have that stick where we start to alter the stereotype. Usually we dismiss it or we say, "Oh, well that's a unique member of that group. That's weird, because they're not like all the rest of them."
So then we get to the juicier part of your question, which is what can individuals, and then what can governments do? So I'll start with the easier one.
What individuals can do is be aware of that. So having a stereotype is not, like I said, necessarily in and of itself a bad thing. But we have to be very consciously aware and checking ourselves, how are we using that stereotyped information to guide our behaviors?
And we also have to actively seek out alternative explanations and information. It's again, a very effortful process. It is going to mean that we can't always take the comfortable, quick, easy route of just making an assumption about something, and that we have to constantly seek out others, make sure that we are not just always trying to prefer the comfort of people we think who are like us, but we have to seek out people actively who might be different from us.
And so then when we start talking about, how do we have governments be a part of that? I think it starts getting a little trickier because we have to think about what we think, what is the role of government, and how much hand does government have in our day-to-day interactions? So it's a little bit of a political question I think.
I think that we know from data, from research that when people are zoned to certain areas, if there are certain areas that have certain resources, that the areas that have more resources are going to be places where people with more resources can live. And to the extent that privileges certain groups of people in society, that is encouraging this prejudicial and discriminatory behavior. We definitely can't have that.
So I guess one of the things you could argue is that governments would have to make sure that they weren't providing resources to some groups over others or in certain locations over others.
And again, I think that goes back to a political conversation is I'm not sure... We're going to have really different ideas about how big the government could be and how far its hand should reach. But in some utopia, you would have governments enforcing only regulations and resources in ways that did not systematically privilege certain groups over others.
Because when we do that, we know that that causes strife between people. You can't just put people to together and hope that they solve their differences. When people are put together without some sort of environmental, situational variables in place, they actually reinforce those stereotypes, and things become worse between groups of people.
So providing opportunities for people to interact with people who are different from them or interact with people with whom they don't normally, or actively putting people together who have negative stereotypes about each other. With some things in place, like figuring out a common enemy that they share. It's actually a really effective way of bringing groups together.
But also helping people, facilitating people figuring out how they're more alike than they are different. So some sort of governmental programs that encourage sharing resources across stereotypically adverse groups or opposed groups would be one way that they could do it.
Anything that's going to encourage people to get out of their little echo chambers where they think they know everything about a different group is something that will encourage the breaking down of these prejudicial and discriminatory practices. But we're never going to get rid of stereotypes.
And frankly, they're shortcuts. They're useful. And so it's going to help me know... For example, if I have a stereotype about college students, then when I meet a college student, I don't have to think for very long what we're going to talk about, because I know they're going to be stressed right around Thanksgiving, because that's right before exams. If I know they're a third year, I know they're going to be looking for jobs. I have a stereotype about what kinds of things are going to make them anxious, and I'm going to immediately be able to talk to them about those kinds of things.
And that's good, because that makes for easier conversation. It makes for less stressful interactions. And so again, I know I'm repeating myself, but in as much as they are positive in making life smoother, they're going to be continuing to be part of our process.
Jack Eisinger: Yeah. It seems like if we don't make assumptions and we don't see the same person every single day, it could be pretty hard to talk to them. And then also for your government answer, politically, what should the government do? But what could the government do? Making people live together, and sharing resources, and making sure those are equal, like you said. Utopia, which I think was the right way to word that.
Sandra Parsons: Yeah. Yeah. I think in theory, it would be a lovely place to live where there was no competition for resources, or the only competition was where you had a perfectly self-sustainable unit where everything was equally accessed. I think we're probably describing a type of government that has been tried and failed before, but in our perfect-
Jack Eisinger: Not necessarily with fully economic resources.
Sandra Parsons: Right, exactly.
Jack Eisinger: Okay, so just to transition back to class, I remember in social psychology, one of the biggest takeaways I had... And it was something that we didn't talk about for a super long time, but it really stuck with me, was when we talked about depressive realism. And that when people who are depressed sometimes do not have the "elevated" versions of themselves that a lot of other people do.
And so I was hoping you can explain for our audience a little bit more about depressive realism, why it can develop, and what are some ways for a psychologist to determine that in a potential patient or other person.
Sandra Parsons: I love this question. So the other side of that is rose colored glasses, which has to do with the self-serving biases that we have. So the idea is that most of us, if we're mentally healthy, are walking around with a little bit elevated version of ourselves in our heads. So I referred to these self-serving biases. We bias the information that we believe about ourselves and that we think other people have about us, that's a little more positive than reality.
So for example, we think people think that we're a little smarter than we actually are, or than they actually think... We think they think we are a little smarter. We think they think we're a little more attractive, a little more clever, a little better dressed, all of these things. In fact, when we look at pictures of ourselves, one that's just us and the other one's a little enhanced, we think the enhanced one is a better picture, it's more accurate.
So the rose colored glasses are actually useful. They protect us from the harsh realities in the world, and they allow us to go out in the world and be a part of things, and continue to explore, and take risks, and be vulnerable, because we're somewhat protected. We think we're already doing pretty well. And so I'm going to extend myself in these spaces, and it should probably go pretty well because hey, I'm a pretty good-looking, smart, clever kind of person, and everyone thinks that about me.
It's when you are depressed that those glasses come off. So it's less about depressive realism developing, and it's more that you are taking away that self-serving bias, and you're being more realistic about the way the world sees you.
So it's realizing that when you're not mentally healthy, when you're a little depressed, mildly to more than that depressed, that the world really isn't spending that much time thinking about you. And that when they do think about you, they are not assessing you as positively as you hope that they are.
So I'm glad that you didn't spend a ton of time thinking about this, because when you do, it becomes in and of itself kind of depressing. It is hard to go out into the world constantly and put your best self forward without that illusion. And so it is a protective mechanism and it's one of the things that keeps us healthy. And so we shouldn't spend a ton of time tearing it apart.
Now, I think the interesting point that I think is probably behind this question is that when we're thinking about this illusion, we do have to think about the healthy version of that versus the unhealthy version of that. So we don't want to be delusional, and we don't want to be unable to accept very true and accurate criticism of self. We have to be able to learn from our mistakes, and we have to have people who can give us that negative feedback and that we will take it in.
So one of the things I would say is that when we... And again, based on research, we know that people who have an inflated sense of self that's not based on any reality, that's actually problematic. So an inflated self-esteem not based on real attributes is problematic.
So I think one of the things... And this is outside my field, but one of the things that I think clinical psychologists would want to do is to figure out, where is the illusion and the self-protective rose colored glasses turning into something more detrimental, something that's delusional? So where the line is between self-serving bias versus delusional thoughts about self or grandiosity is going to be a clinical question, I think with some sort of assessments.
And then I think for the average person who we aren't concerned has delusions, knowing that they have somebody who has their best interest in mind, who can give them realistic feedback, that they will be able to take in without having that in-group threat that we talked about is going to be really important.
So it's the difference between somebody who believes they're so spectacular, that to believe anything else is going to be crushing to them. Versus somebody who in general, thinks they're pretty great and a little better than the average bear, who has a parent or a best friend or a partner who can say to them, "You are really great, but there's this one thing that we need to talk about. You're really a terrible cook, Sandy. You really can't actually cook." Or, "You think you're being gregarious and you're actually being annoying in these spaces. You need to stop talking so much," or whatever. It is the thing that you think is really charming about you, that other people may not think is super charming.
And being able to trust that information and say, "Okay, the threat's coming from inside the house, but it's okay because I trust you." And in order to continue to have that positive feedback loop, we do have to make changes when necessary. So that's okay. Yeah, but it's hard. That's tough.
Jack Eisinger: Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to get into, just the different spectrum from depressive realism to rose colored glasses, and the fact that not only are humans weird, like you mentioned. And I also think we can also be relatively unaware of ourselves all across that spectrum. And so like you mentioned, which is perfect, having that person that is able to tell you those things is just the crucial, most important thing to making sure that you don't stray too far.
Sandra Parsons: 100%.
Jack Eisinger: One side or the other to the point that it would cause some detrimental effects.
Sandra Parsons: Absolutely. I think you said that really well. I think you do have to have that person. And the other thing that's true about wellbeing is that one of the best predictors of wellbeing in a person is whether they have social support. And part of social support is someone who can say the good, the bad, and the ugly, who can say, "You really are all these things a little better than the average bear, but in this one area you're"-
Jack Eisinger: Social support isn't all support. Yeah, it's a little bit of pushing you in inward direction.
Sandra Parsons: Absolutely. A little bit of realism spiced in there is good.
Jack Eisinger: All right. And now to go the opposite direction of realism, I want to ask you a few, I don't know, not theoretical, but just questions that aren't so grounded in the curriculum. I was curious, what is the most misunderstood thing about social psychology in your opinion?
Sandra Parsons: I love that question. So I think that when people hear that we're going to study how other people affect the way we think, feel, and behave, they're like, "Oh, you mean you're going to study everyday knowledge, like stuff that we already know all the time?" And that's something that social psychology has a bit of a chip on its shoulder. I think psychology in general does, but specifically social psychology, because the thing that we're studying is in fact the thing that most of us are doing all day long. We're trying to figure out why are people the way that they are, how can I understand how they are, so I can control it, and I can react to it, and make things turn out the best way possible?
And there's various versions of that, but that's kind of the big thing, is how can I be in this world and understand what's going to happen so that I can predict it, so that I can react to it and get things my way? Basically in a nutshell.
And so I think what people misunderstand about social psychology is that it is not just the study of everyday behavior. That there's a scientific method to it, that the reason why you think something is true may be totally wrong. Not that it leads you to the wrong reaction to it, but the processes behind it are wrong.
And so social psychology can help us tease out those theoretical implications and theoretical predictions in ways that are surprising to somebody who doesn't study social psychology. I'm going to give you example, but I think some people might see that and say, "Well, who caress? If it leads me to the same conclusion, why do I care what the process is?" And that's somebody who just isn't interested in studying social psychology.
I think we're always going to have... My husband studies the brain and cancer cells, and I don't want anyone to have cancer. And as long as he can figure out how to prevent it, I don't really care how we got there.
So here's an example. People talk about personality all the time and they say, "I know how she I because I know her personality." And what a social psychologist would say is, "What you really know is how that person expresses their personality in the context of the situation you see them in."
And so I'm not saying that they're wrong. You probably do know, not as well as you think you do, but it doesn't matter. People think that they know how other people will behave in certain situations based on personality. And when I point out to them, "You really only see that person in a very narrow band of situations. It's the situation that's driving the behavior, not the personality." And they're like... So I think that's something that's exciting to think about, because for me, that changes the way I think about what personality is. I want people to understand that when you use that word, you mean something different than what you think you mean.
I think that's cool. Some people don't care, but then they don't have to be social psychologists if they don't want to be. Right? So that's I think-
Jack Eisinger: No, that's cool. I remember taking your class and hearing that. But even still to this day, even though I have that mental note of that distinction, when I'm talking with people, I'll still sometimes refer to them both as personality, even though I know the difference. It's a harder thing to say.
Sandra Parsons: Yeah. And even though we all know what we mean, in my head when people say that, I'm like, "Well, I don't know." That's personality or situation. And what makes it interesting to me is that means that it's more changeable than people think that it is. Because I think if I could get you in a different situation, I get you to have a different kind of response to that.
Jack Eisinger: So then is that...
Sandra Parsons: Right? And like you said, people are often really unaware what's driving their behaviors. And so to me, that's powerful, because to me I think, "Okay, well let's get you out of this situation that I think is driving you to do something that I don't think is good or healthy or equitable, or the way I want it to be selfish. Let's move you into a different location, in a different situational space. Let me change the factors, and then let's see how you behave and see if it turns out better for all of us."
Jack Eisinger: I really like that answer. And then in a similar vein, if you had to create a class about an under focused area of social psychology, or positive psychology, or really any topic that you're interested in, what would you want to teach about?
Sandra Parsons: To figure out how to best teach people how to utilize the skills and the tools that we have. I think people don't harness what we know about social psychology in ways that get the best outcomes done. And so very specifically, how do we present information to people in a way that will make them more likely to accept that information?
So this class would be something like a social movements class, or how to improve the public service announcement. Every time I see people talking about a problem that they see, and I think to myself, "I wish that they'd talked to a social psychologist about that because I could help you solve that problem." Not me personally, but social psychology. How do we persuade people to do things? How do we frame messages that can be the most useful?
So it'd be all about that. It's like how to deliver messages, how to harness expertise, how to use what we know about the way people think and feel to get them to do the more healthy thing, the fairer thing, the more just thing. That's what I would do. And I-
Jack Eisinger: So kind of like the more communicative aspect, the more practical way of getting things done.
Sandra Parsons: Yes. Even just thinking about Covid-19 rules and regulations, let's use what we know about persuasive messages, and what we know about different audiences for different types of behaviors, and tailor multiple different messages. And I feel like we just got one message. "This is what you're supposed to do." And then of course the other side is, "This is what you're not supposed to do."
We can talk to both of those groups with social psychology, we just have to tailor the message appropriately, and I don't feel like anyone did that. And so that kind of thing, like composting. How can we present composting to a diverse group of people, or cessation of smoking, or better alcohol use rules? It can apply to anything, but how do we harness that communication and what we know about message framing, and audience effects, and all of that, and make it more effective?
Jack Eisinger: I don't know how classes are made, but I would definitely take that.
Sandra Parsons: Would you take it?
Jack Eisinger: Yeah, that does sound very interesting. And then that's pretty much the end of my questions. I just wanted to ask, is there any advice or takeaways you want to share with the audience in a conclusion?
Sandra Parsons: Take a psychology class. I think everyone should have to take at least one psychology class. I think it makes us better human beings. Also try to remember that...
You know what? Here's my takeaway. Fundamental attribution error. I want the world to know that when you think someone does something, and you think that they are something, a jerk or not a nice person because you don't like what they did, try to imagine that there's some situational effect that's leading them to that behavior, and make a more gracious attribution about the person instead of immediately jumping to the assumption that they're not very nice or jerky.
Jack Eisinger: Yeah. No, that's definitely my biggest takeaway from social psychology, fundamental attribution error. It's ingrained in my mind now.
Sandra Parsons: Good. I'm so glad. We need to be nicer about our assumptions about other people, and give each other the benefit of the doubt in the same way that we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt when we do something that we wish we hadn't done.
Jack Eisinger: Put on some slightly rosier colored glasses for other people as much as we do ourselves
Sandra Parsons: There we go. That's right. I love that.
Jack Eisinger: All right. Yeah, so that's pretty much the interview. Thank you so much for taking the time to participate. For you and any of the other viewers, feel free to check out the Seattle Anxiety Specialists website, and I hope you all have a great day.
Sandra Parsons: Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. It's good to see you.
Jack Eisinger: Of course.
Please note: The views expressed by the interviewee are for educational and informational purposes only, are not meant to diagnose or treat any condition, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Seattle Anxiety Specialists, PLLC.
Editor: Jennifer (Ghahari) Smith, Ph.D.