How I Turned from a Psychologist into a Social Scientist

Psychologist or scientist?

Ever since I started working at the Institute of Education and doing research in education, and later in cognitive psychology, I always stumbled when people asked me: So, what do you do? Even when my children asked: Mom, what’s your job? I would pause and think for a long time about how to answer. If I said I was a psychologist, I had to clarify: a psychologist, yes, but not the kind who provides therapy or works with clients, rather a psychologist who conducts research. If I said I was a scientist, I had to clarify again: a scientist, but not a “real” scientist 😊 , not a physicist, chemist, or biologist, but one working in the field of psychology. Sometimes I had to explain further: that we survey people, collect data about them, conduct experiments, and then I analyze the results, write papers, and so on.

Social scientist

The solution to this dilemma came to me unexpectedly after I moved to Serbia and became an independent researcher. I can’t say it was an easy choice. In fact, I can’t even say it was a conscious choice. If I had had a real choice, I would still have preferred to work at a university or a research institute. But it was here, surprisingly, that I realized what I actually do (yes, even after many years of experience, this realization was unexpected). And I understood that the term social scientist describes my work very precisely. It allows me to step outside disciplinary boundaries and avoid forcing a research problem into the narrow framework of psychology, sociology, or psychometrics. I was always not so much confused, but rather exhausted by endless debates about what is or isn’t the “proper” subject of psychology.

The Tyranny of Disciplinary Labels

I remember how often, back at the institute, I was surprised by the need to tie research so strictly to the rigid boundaries of one discipline. And how many discussions at seminars or dissertation councils revolved around whether a particular research topic “really” belonged to the institute’s field.

In Russia, the system is arranged in such a way that when you write a dissertation, you must select a very narrow specialization, for example, social psychology or developmental psychology. And then you must also prove that your topic belongs precisely to that narrow field. So, a researcher ends up being constrained not only in their choice of methods or theories, but by more fundamental limitations: if you are a psychologist, you are expected to study only those phenomena considered (by someone) to belong to psychology. Of course, any social phenomenon can be approached from different angles, with different focuses. A cognitive psychologist and a sociologist might study the same phenomenon, say, career choice, but with completely different perspectives. The question is: how useful is it that this separation occurs so early, not just at the stage of forming hypotheses, but even in choosing the research topic itself?

Not long ago, on our Telegram channel Psychometrics and Psychoskeptic, we discussed the article “Differences in psychologists’ cognitive traits are associated with scientific divides.” About 8,000 psychologists took part, positioning themselves on 16 controversial topics — from nature vs nurture and the role of social environment to whether psychology should rely on mathematical models or neurobiology.

One key question asked whether psychology progresses when researchers study processes like memory or attention in isolation, or whether this focus actually holds the field back. The majority was closer to the second option. We repeated the poll in our channel: out of ~50 participants, 45% agreed that psychology is hindered by studying isolated processes, only 14% thought it helps. This suggests that more and more researchers see the value of a holistic approach.

Dark side of interdisciplinarity

Of course, interdisciplinarity has its dark side. Often, under the umbrella of “interdisciplinary research,” one finds low-quality publications or conferences. But this does not mean that strict disciplinary boundaries guarantee quality either. Interestingly, there is now quite a substantial body of research on interdisciplinarity. For example, in the article Interdisciplinarity revisited (Nature) it is shown that the more disciplines involved in a research frontier, the higher the citation rates. In other words, interdisciplinary work tends to gain broader impact and recognition. At the same time, the paper How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research (arXiv) demonstrates how journal rankings and indexing systems often penalize interdisciplinary work because it doesn’t fit neatly into established disciplinary frameworks. And in a recent article in the Journal of Higher Education (Taylor & Francis), Mäkinen describes how tenure and promotion systems often act as “guardians of disciplinary order.” Despite the rhetoric in favor of interdisciplinarity, evaluation norms remain strongly discipline-oriented. Interdisciplinary projects, therefore, frequently fall into a “gray zone”: they are harder to evaluate, struggle to find appropriate reviewers, and can be seen as risky or even disadvantageous in tenure review. Some interviewees went so far as to call interdisciplinarity “a curse from a tenure point of view” or even “a kiss of death” for early-career researchers.

The Freedom to Ask Questions

I believe interdisciplinarity is essential when you are asking questions, forming hypotheses, and trying to look at a phenomenon from a new perspective. In this sense, the term social scientist truly reflects both what I do and what I want to continue doing. And perhaps it is precisely because I lost my professional community here in Serbia, but also lost the restrictive boundaries that came with it, that I have gained freedom: in my thinking, in the choice of topics and ideas. If earlier I sometimes regretted that I was not a “real scientist,” now I feel confident that studying human behavior is no less real science than studying the “behavior” of ribosomes.

A Century-Old Battle Over Names

One funny association comes to mind regarding the term “psychologist.” In the early days of psychology as an experimental science, those pioneering psychologists had to share the term experimental psychology with spiritualist societies. In 19th-century Europe, there was intense interest in spiritualism, and many associations included “experimental psychology” in their name, though in practice they were conducting séances. Over time, psychologists managed to reclaim the term and firmly establish it as belonging to scientific research.

Today we see something similar. In public perception, “psychology” is still associated more with counseling and psychotherapy than with science.  Public perception of psychology often diverges sharply from its scientific reality. As Scott Lilienfeld noted, part of the problem is psychology’s “public face”: the discipline is often conflated with popular psychology and psychotherapy, which obscures its scientific foundation (Lilienfeld, 2012). Many people doubt its scientific status and usefulness for society (Ferguson, 2015). Together, these findings highlight a persistent gap between how psychologists see their field and how it is perceived by the broader public. I doubt scientists will succeed in reclaiming the term and firmly associating it with research (at least in my view). Perhaps that is why the term social sciences works better: precisely because it separates itself from psychology as a purely practical or consulting activity.

Although... perhaps the very term social sciences is a kind of surrender - an acknowledgment that psychologists have accepted the fact that “psychology” in the public mind is tied more to counseling and everyday practices than to science, and so they try to use another word.