心理专业学生如何才能做好学问？第三部分4

sos862004

How do you keep up with the volume of literature given that we are an expanding field and it is quite difficult to stay current?


Shelley Taylor.
I actually have a formula for precisely that problem. I am not sure it works for everybody, but I really try to do two things. First, I do not read the journals when they come in, cover to cover. I skim the titles and the abstracts, and then I read things as they become relevant to projects. So when I am working on a book, for example, I will ransack my journals for the relevant articles, or when I am working on a pa-per, I do the same thing. I only read literature when it is useful to me, and I think that saves a lot of wasted effort because if you do not have something to hang it on, it goes. Maybe other people’s minds hold more than mine does, but I really find that it has to be working for me in order for me to hold it. So I would say you need to have a rough idea of what is going on in the field, but it is unrealistic to believe that you can stay on top of everything.


Second, I find reading two daily newspa-pers to be enormously helpful for just staying on top of what is really important in the world. I read the New York Times and skim the Los Angeles Times every day. I think that is a very valuable and necessary source of input for the purpose of shaping the problems that you ultimately decide to work on. So it is reading broad and then focusing in a utilitarian way on a more narrow literature. Other people may have different formulas, but that has worked for me.


Robert Sternberg.
Well, I write textbooks, which forces me to keep up with the field. I edited Psychological Bulletin, which forced me to keep up with the field. Now I am going to edit Contemporary Psychology, which will force me to keep up with the field. So I try to take something that would normally be receptive, just reading about the field, and turn it into something productive. I also edit a lot of books, so I get people to send me chapters about what they are doing, and I read about their current work.


There is one additional thing to keep in mind. Some years ago, I was visiting a foreign country, and there was a famous psychologist who wanted to show me the zoo in his town. So we went to the zoo. When we got to the zoo, we passed the cages of the primates, and they were engaging in strange and unnatural s-e-x. Being from New Jersey, I averted my eyes. This guy, however, started staring at them, and within about 30 seconds he started to analyze their behavior in terms of his theory of intelligence. I thought this was kind of bizarre because, whatever it is that motivates the s-e-xual behavior of primates, it probably has nothing to do with his theory of intelligence.


So the other side of it is that it is important to keep up, but people can get so obsessed with knowledge and with knowing a lot that they actually get locked in. Whatever their paradigm is, they start to see everything within the knowledge of that paradigm. So I think it is important to know a lot, but it is also important to let go of that sometimes and get out of the boxes very tightly organized knowledge can create.


Martin Seligman.
Two things to say about that. The first is shortcuts, which is something like Shelley said. So I do roughly what Shelley does. In our decision to invest a great deal in digitizing the journals for you, we are also trying to create powerful search engines as well. So I think that this will help extrude some of the shortcuts people like Bob, Shelley, and I use to get through this literature. But there is a real problem with this suggestion, and that is, so much of what is important to learn about is learned through serendipity and elsewhere. So if you are following a search engine you have some trouble with this. So we are actually thinking about randomly injecting in the search engine other things—like walking along the shelves of a library.


The second thing—and I will to apologize to both Bob and Shelley here, for what I have to say is both profane and heretical. It is something Al Bandura once said to me, which I am reluctant to repeat to someone who edits the Psychological Bulletin, is that there are two kinds of psychologists: those who read and those who write. Do not believe that. I think you want to read a few things and own them. As opposed to read everything and sort of know what is there. I think creativity is more likely to emerge from intellectual ownership than it is
from broad coverage.

fanhypsy

假设我们处在一个（文献）膨胀的领域，把握最新前沿的情况相当困难，那么你是如何跟上文献的？

谢利•泰勒：
      对这个问题，我正好有一“招儿”。虽然我不能确定它对每个人都有效，但是我日常总是试着做两件事。第一，当杂志来时，我并不每页都阅读。我快速浏览题目和摘要，然后阅读那些与我的项目有关的东西。所以，当我写一个书时，我会到处搜索杂志上那些相关的文章。当我写一篇论文时，我也做同样的事情。只有在文章对我有用时，我才读它们。我认为这能节约大量的精力，因为如果你不连续做某事，时间就过去了。也许其他人能一心二用，但是我发现为了“抓住它”我必须集中注意做一件事。所以，我要说你对某个领域里发生的事情要有一个大致的概念（idea），但是对每件事都了如指掌是不现实的。
      第二，我发现阅读两份日报对我判断什么是现实中真正重要的有莫大的帮助。我每天都读纽约时报（the New York Times）和洛杉矶时报（the Los Angeles Times）。我认为那是个非常有价值和必要的信息来源，给你目的以型构你最终决定做的问题（shaping the problems）。所以，需要广泛阅读，然后在某种目的下集中于相对狭窄的某个领域的文献。其他人可能有不同的“招儿”，但这对我很管用。

罗伯特•斯腾伯格：
      好，写书强迫我跟上这个领域。编辑Psychological Bulletin也要求我跟上这个领域。现在我正打算主编Contemporary Psychology，这也要我跟上这个领域。所以，我努力抓住那些在正常情况下能被接受的事，要做到这点就是阅读这个领域的文献，然后将它们转化为产品。我也编辑了很多书，所以我让其他人将他们正在做的送给我。我就读他们最近的工作。
       我想起另外一件事。几年前，我去外国访问，该国一个著名心理学家想带我参观他们镇上的动物园。所以我们就去了。当进入那个动物园时，我们从一个装有灵长类的笼子前路过。当时他们正在给那几个灵长类动物进行人工授精。从新泽西来的我把眼睛转开了。但那个家伙，开始死死地盯住他们，大约30分钟的时间里他开始用他自己的智力理论分析动物的行为。我觉得这很怪异，不管什么驱动着灵长类的性行为，这可能与他的智力理论一点关系的都没有。所以这件事情的另一面是，保持知识很重要，但是知识也会使人迷惑，当知道太多时，人们就陷入知识的“泥潭”难以自拔。无论他们的范式是什么，他们开始用这个范式去观察任何事情。所以我认为知道很多是很重要，但是有时候跳出让人禁锢的知识圈外同样重要。

马丁•塞利格曼：
      关于这个问题，我也说两点。第一点是捷径。正如谢利所说。我所做的与谢利所说的大致一致。当我们决定为你进行巨大投资将杂志数字化时，我们也创造了强有力的搜索引擎。所以我认为这有助于我们找到捷径，像Bob（即斯腾伯格），谢利和我在浏览文献时常做的那样。但是这个建议也有一个严重的问题，即是，有很多重要的东西是通过偶遇（serendipity）在别处学到的。如果你依赖于某个搜索引擎，你就会遇到这个问题。所以我们其实是未加计划地在搜索引擎里放入东西，就像我们随意地在图书馆的书架旁浏览。
       第二点，我要先向Bob和谢利道歉，因为我不得不说些离经叛道的话。 A•班杜拉曾对我说的，是否要将这话重复给正在编辑Psychological Bulletin人听，我有点犹豫。他说有两种人，读文章的和写文章的。不要相信这个。我认为你想读点点东西，然后掌握它们。与什么都读相反，我认为，创造性可能从智力掌握中萌芽，而不是从广泛的占有中。