TOW #14- The Joy of Psyching Myself Out

Maria Konnikova is a writer and journalist who primarily writes about psychology and literature. In her op-ed piece ‘The Joy of Psyching Myself Out’, she compares her experience as a psychologist to her experience as a writer. Originally, she claims that she feared that the transition from a psychologist to a writer would be rather severe. However, she comes to the conclusion that the two are surprisingly similar in their methodology, following the ideas of making scenarios and predicting results. The only difference is how you execute your ‘experiment’.

To advocate her ideas, Konnikova turns mostly to allusions to famous scientists that any psychologist would be able to recognize. Many of these names include William James, Sigmund Freud, and Anton Chekhov. The quotes that she provides from each all circle around her ideas, such as Chekhov’s quote from 1887, “A writer must be as objective as a chemist… He must abandon the subjective line; he must know that dung heaps play a very reasonable part in a landscape.” This particular quote draws a connection to the two seemingly different careers. On one end, all of the theories are for stories and stories alone, to create a book. On the other, all of the theories are to be tested so that we can put together conclusions about the human mind. However, the connection in between are the obstacles that are put forth in order to create these conclusions that will hopefully come to make a similar impact.

Konnikova often turns to the contrasting elements of objective (which was the primary influence in her psychology career) and intrinsic (the primary influence in her writing career) values. Describing her psychology career, she often complains that she felt restrained by the need to devise experiments and consider every detail that went into them technically and financially. Despite turning to writing as a way to escape the objective career, Konnikova reveals that within the intrinsic interest, the thinking process that came from the psychology career never left. So in reality, the two ended up to be surprisingly similar to each other.

I believe that Konnikova put forth an interesting idea into the argument whether or not creativity and science can live hand in hand. While the two are so seemingly different, Konnikova puts forth a personal anecdote in order to offer her perspective. I believe her allusions to other psychologists definitely called out to any psychologist that may be reading the piece. However, the simplistic descriptions that she used throughout definitely allowed those who may not be so in tune with psychology to join into the conversation.