Why psychology matters

Of course you’d spot a gorilla in a basketball game. Right? Wrong!

Psychologists carry out a vast amount of research, but does it all matter? In my opinion, no. In fact, some studies are meaningless and other work has caused upset and harm. However, I remain optimistic. I have spent my entire career working as a psychologist, and when the discipline is at its best, I believe that it’s hugely meaningful and makes the world a better place. I was recently invited to write a book on why psychology matters, and I discussed five ways in which research can be meaningful. Let’s start off by taking a brief look at each of them.

Psychology often tests common-sense ideas about how the human mind works and replaces incorrect intuitions with more accurate insights. Take, for example, work that has examined our powers of observation. Most of us think that we would instantly spot an unusual event taking place in front of our eyes, but several studies on inattentional blindness suggest that this isn’t the case. In the 1990s, psychologists Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris created a now wellknown short film involving two teams of people (see www.tinyurl.com/yckdthkt). Each team contained three individuals, with those in one team wearing white T-shirts and those in the other team wearing black T-shirts. Each team had a basketball and during the film the players passed their basketball to one another. A few minutes into the action, a person dressed as a gorilla walked through the scene and beat their chest at the camera. The researchers showed people the film and had them count how many times the team wearing white T-shirts passed their basketball. Amazingly, around half of the observers failed to spot the gorilla. Related work has shown that people chatting on a mobile telephone often failed to notice a clown riding past on a unicycle.