>>12392997>>12397141>>12398731True, but that's a pretty normative evaluation. You could just as easily call it how the first anon did and say “interest in people”. Whether empathy, oversocialization, mommy instinct, or manipulativeness, that's what it boils down to. Going by most female psych majors I know, it's the former more often than the latter. And even those that were conniving cunts didn't really further their conniving ability by studying psych. Manipulating people is more of an art form, and a psych major helps very little with honing that skill.
>>12395473This is the catch, and why most are pretty disappointed by psych, and go do something else or join the ranks of psychotherapists (shoulder to cry on for hire).
The thing is, nothing squeezes emotion out of understanding humans like doing it scientifically. Good psych, like psychometrics or neuropsychology goes against the very nature of empathic social understanding. It shows that human characteristics can sometimes actually be measured, and prioritizes that. It demonstrates that some people are objectively smarter than others, and not everybody is “intelligent” or “wonderful” in their own special way.
The only problem I see is that as a result of this the field might be politicized. EQ, implicit bias testing, gender dysphoria as an identity, and plenty more cancer to go around. Psychometrics and IQ are being thoroughly discarded, and not because anything better came along, but just because it offends the sensibilities of people who are in psych for the feelz and not for the science.
