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Accidental
Psychologist
Meg
Rohan
Edited by Ben Callegari
Starting
a career as a school teacher, Meg Rohan found relocating to
Canada a surprising force in changing her career path to become
a Social Psychologist.
On April 12, 2006, I lectured to a huge first year class.
There were a few high school students in the audience, and
I was more nervous than usual! I was talking about personality
and how this can be viewed as a function of the things we’ve
learned. So, for example, we might be the type of person who
smiles a lot because we’ve been positively reinforced for
doing that throughout our lives. This is different from saying
that someone who smiles a lot is “high” in an agreeableness
trait, for example (traits are often viewed as something genetically
based and unchanging).
Teaching is a small part of what my job is. I think teaching
is incredibly important because my colleagues of tomorrow
might be in the audience. Someone there might become interested
enough in what I say to go on to get a PhD and become an academic
researcher. Or, they might become a clinician and refer to
my work (or consult me) about empirical foundations for clinical
interventions, for example.
I really landed in my current career by accident. I have a
degree in music and English. I was a teacher for 10 years
in Australia and England. But when I went to Canada, for some
political reason I couldn’t get approval to teach. They said
I had to get another academic degree. I didn’t want to do
English or music again, so the only other thing I could get
into was Psychology.
I had an amazing lecturer John Arrowood, who is a social psychologist
(now retired), and he inspired me to pursue a career in social
psychological research. He also inspired me to teach in a
way that drew on real life, always showing students the connection
between theory and application.
I then did a PhD with Mark
Zanna as a supervisor. He is one of the top 10
social psychologists in the world. He was the person who I
quote when I say “stand on the shoulders not the faces of
previous researchers” to students who think “criticism” means
saying things like “the researcher failed to do X” (the implication
that they’re dumb) or don’t acknowledge sources of ideas and
previous important work.
My advice to anyone contemplating a career in the sciences
is that if you’re not interested, don’t do it. Find an area
that embodies a question you’d REALLY like the answer to.
To find what you’re interested in, take lots of different
courses to find it.
Always act interested, convince yourself…so that you can get
far enough into the subject to actually make a decision about
whether you’re truly captivated by the area or question. Also,
know that science is about creativity and excitement! You
create this yourself, and with colleagues, you can really
make a difference.
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