Thursday, September 3, 2009

A psychology presentation

My wife and I attended a presentation by a LDS psychologist last night. It was okay. Most of the material was fairly general and it wasn't always clear where the good doctor was going with his presentation, which I found ironic being that the topic was "communication." In any event, he did mention a couple of things that I did find interesting.

First, he mentioned that studies by BYU and Harvard have shown that the only difference that can be proven in the abilities between men and women is that men are better at spacial relations. He have the example that guys are better at looking at a box and being able to tell immediately which space it will fit into in the garage. Women, he said, are better at describing things, using the example of word games at a party like providing numerous synonyms for the same thing. He didn't linger on this point, but based on the context of this statement and the examples he gave within this portion of his presentation, he implied that other gender differences are a result of other factors, like learning and societal expectations. Rarely do you hear from LDS sources that men and women aren't really all that different.

Second, he mentioned that he was one of the very few LDS psychologists in Southern California who hadn't been divorced. I can imagine living with a psychologist would be difficult.

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