Theorizing
Aug. 6th, 2006 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebWe went to Kim Phung for early lunch today. When Robin was looking online to confirm that they were open today, he said he found two kinds of reviews. One kind said that the place is fabulous in every way, and if you've been turned off before by the two-hour waits at lunchtime, it's safe to return because the waits aren't that long anymore.
The other kind of reviews said that they don't know what all the hoopla is about. They've been to Vietnam and it's very easy to find food there that's better than at Kim Phung. You have to use all the condiments on the table just to give some flavor to the food.
Today we noticed that the other three tables there were full of people who did not look Vietnamese. I decided that more authentic Vietnamese restaurants may have opened recently, so all the Vietnamese people are eating at those places instead of Kim Phung, which is why the waits are no longer so long (during weekday lunches, I assume). But meanwhile, the food is still cheap, voluminous, and delicious to the American palate.
**
And now you can see why I think I should be a theorist of some kind: because I can take opposite-sounding evidence and come up with some theory about how it is all true.
I only recall creating one theory, however. And sadly, that theory was created for evil, not good. I co-authored the Bat Theory of Adolescent Personality with a classmate in college. We were making fun of how horrible our textbook on personality was and, by extension, the entire field of personality psychology. Blowing a lot of steam.
See, each chapter of our book was about a different guy's theory. Each chapter started with a picture of the guy and a short biography. (Excuse me, am I taking a history class? Yes. Because we don't actually know any psychology yet, so we have to pad the book with other things. Like history.)
Then there would be a description of the guy's theory including a lot of the new terms he made up, each carefully italicized and defined. Then there would be a section on what this theory had to do with personality (usually not much). Then there was a section about how the theory said you should try to fix people with mental problems. As if there are only two personalities in the world: adaptive and sick.
And finally there was my favorite section of the chapter. This is the section where they evaluate the theory as a theory. They tell you that good theories have several characteristics such as being testable, being both simple enough and complex enough to be useful, etc. And each and every chapter (I think) ended with a section explaining that the theory sucked. (Many of them were not even testable. No big names. Just, you know, Freud. And Jung. Grr.)
So my classmate and I thought that we could also create a theory that sucked. At least ours was testable, though. And we had plenty of terms. My favorite was batpole-ism, the tendency of teenagers to change clothes often. Batpole-ism is necessary for good development because teenagers need to try on different roles to help them into becoming healthy adults.
We turned in our theory, written up as a chapter in the book, along with our final. At the time, I didn't realize this was completely idiotic. In fact, our instructor had never even displayed a sense of humor in class. Some joked at the irony of someone with no personality teaching the class on personality. (I think she may have had a sense of humor and personality, but kept those deep under the surface so that she wouldn't be seen as unprofessional, because she was a female in a mostly male work environment. I have no evidence whatsoever for this other than that she looked and sounded female. But theorists don't need evidence--that's for researchers to provide.)
Fortunately, nothing bad happened to us. We never heard a thing one way or the other about our "theory," and our grades were not damaged. I have no idea what her response was.
The other kind of reviews said that they don't know what all the hoopla is about. They've been to Vietnam and it's very easy to find food there that's better than at Kim Phung. You have to use all the condiments on the table just to give some flavor to the food.
Today we noticed that the other three tables there were full of people who did not look Vietnamese. I decided that more authentic Vietnamese restaurants may have opened recently, so all the Vietnamese people are eating at those places instead of Kim Phung, which is why the waits are no longer so long (during weekday lunches, I assume). But meanwhile, the food is still cheap, voluminous, and delicious to the American palate.
**
And now you can see why I think I should be a theorist of some kind: because I can take opposite-sounding evidence and come up with some theory about how it is all true.
I only recall creating one theory, however. And sadly, that theory was created for evil, not good. I co-authored the Bat Theory of Adolescent Personality with a classmate in college. We were making fun of how horrible our textbook on personality was and, by extension, the entire field of personality psychology. Blowing a lot of steam.
See, each chapter of our book was about a different guy's theory. Each chapter started with a picture of the guy and a short biography. (Excuse me, am I taking a history class? Yes. Because we don't actually know any psychology yet, so we have to pad the book with other things. Like history.)
Then there would be a description of the guy's theory including a lot of the new terms he made up, each carefully italicized and defined. Then there would be a section on what this theory had to do with personality (usually not much). Then there was a section about how the theory said you should try to fix people with mental problems. As if there are only two personalities in the world: adaptive and sick.
And finally there was my favorite section of the chapter. This is the section where they evaluate the theory as a theory. They tell you that good theories have several characteristics such as being testable, being both simple enough and complex enough to be useful, etc. And each and every chapter (I think) ended with a section explaining that the theory sucked. (Many of them were not even testable. No big names. Just, you know, Freud. And Jung. Grr.)
So my classmate and I thought that we could also create a theory that sucked. At least ours was testable, though. And we had plenty of terms. My favorite was batpole-ism, the tendency of teenagers to change clothes often. Batpole-ism is necessary for good development because teenagers need to try on different roles to help them into becoming healthy adults.
We turned in our theory, written up as a chapter in the book, along with our final. At the time, I didn't realize this was completely idiotic. In fact, our instructor had never even displayed a sense of humor in class. Some joked at the irony of someone with no personality teaching the class on personality. (I think she may have had a sense of humor and personality, but kept those deep under the surface so that she wouldn't be seen as unprofessional, because she was a female in a mostly male work environment. I have no evidence whatsoever for this other than that she looked and sounded female. But theorists don't need evidence--that's for researchers to provide.)
Fortunately, nothing bad happened to us. We never heard a thing one way or the other about our "theory," and our grades were not damaged. I have no idea what her response was.