Approximate reading time: 8 minutes

The Hammer and the Singing Daisy

How can you tell if your theory is ready for psychological testing? How can you tell when and with whom to apply your theories? I will share two stories that will give you critical strategies to help you find the answers to these questions. The first story involves a hammer, and helps us answer the question, “What are you trying to do?” The second story about a singing daisy will help us remember the question, “Who is not in the picture?” After learning the key takeaways from these stories, you will have two of the most important questions you will need to critically understand the history of psychology presented in this chapter.

What Are You Trying to Do? – The Hammer

Think about the last time you saw or held a hammer in your hand. It is a simple, effective tool, ideal for certain tasks like joining two pieces of wood. A hammer is precise, reliable, and powerfully useful in construction. My father used a hammer to build our five bedroom family home, a sturdy shelter for 50 years for our family of nine. But, there are limits to what a hammer can do. For example, what would happen if we tried using a hammer to join two pieces of broken porcelain or to stitch two sides of a gash in your skin? It wouldn’t work because you need glue to join two pieces of broken porcelain, and you need thread to stitch back together two sides of a gash in your skin. In these scenarios, the hammer, no matter how skillful the hand that wields it, is not just inadequate; it’s potentially harmful.

A theory is a tool, like a hammer. It is a tool we use to guide our observations, design our experiments, and interpret our results. And just like a hammer, a theory — a tool — is only beneficial in certain circumstances. If we apply a theory appropriately, it can be powerful enough to build a solid base of information to advance our knowledge. If, however, the theory is over-generalised, or used for the wrong people, or applied in the wrong circumstances, we can misunderstand human behaviour, or worse, hurt the people we are trying to help. For example, if we over-apply a theory that awarding bonus point rewards in education (i.e., extrinsic motivation) always increases learning, we could undermine students’ natural, internal drive to learn (i.e., intrinsic motivation), which would be like over-using a hammer.

In the realm of psychology, theories are not our only tools. Professionals in this field also use various investigative methods, psychological assessments, and diagnostic technologies. Each of these tools, like a theory, excels at specific uses and contexts. The hammer principle applies here as well; it is crucial to use the right tool in the right situation. Just as a hammer is not suitable for all tasks, a single theory or assessment method may not be universally applicable. Understanding when and how to use these tools is key to effectively studying and addressing the complexities of human behaviour. In psychology, understanding the limitations and appropriate applications of a tool like a hammer leads us to a crucial question: how does one develop the expertise to choose the right tool for a given situation in professional practice? To learn the answer to this question check out Deep Dive HP.1.

Who is Not in the Picture? – The Singing Daisy

Now we are ready to consider our second story. Imagine that you have come to a Grade 1 school play to see your 5-year-old cousin play the part of the Singing Daisy in the musical “Inch by Inch, Row by Row”, a story about the adventure and growth in a magic garden. The stage is bustling with little actors, as bees, gardeners, the sun, and a rain cloud appear in turn. There, in the last row on the far right, is your adorable cousin, the Singing Daisy. His 30-second singing solo is delightful and full of energy. Your whole family is there, phone cameras in hand, ready to capture his magical daisy dance. The auditorium is also filled with the parents of the other Grade 1 children. Each parent has their camera poised to record their child’s moment. A journalist from the local paper is present too, focusing on the award-winning children’s choir director who will be featured in an upcoming issue.

The show is over-the-top cute, and the children are bursting with pride about their performance. Here is an important question for you, at the end of the night: since everyone attended the same concert, listened to the same songs, and saw the same dance routines, will everyone have the same photos in their camera rolls? The answer is that it would be very unlikely because everyone has a different person who is the most important one to focus on.

For you, it is your adorable little cousin—the Singing Daisy. For each parent in the audience, it will be their own child. And for the journalist, it is the award-winning choir director. Is it right or wrong to focus your photos only on the most important one for you? Of course, it is OK to focus on your important one if you are only saving memories for your family. While each person’s camera captures what’s most important to them, it necessarily leaves out others. That is why it is important for us to make a practice of asking, “Who is not in the picture?” or “Who has not been included?”.

This school musical can be our metaphor for understanding what has happened throughout the early history of psychology. Historically, psychology professionals have often focused their lens narrowly, predominantly on white males, and have erroneously extended those findings to describe everyone. Meanwhile, the stories of women, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour), people with disabilities and other marginalised groups were rarely included, if at all. This selective focus has led to decades of misunderstandings of human behaviour.

Just as in the school play, where each audience member’s focus determines what’s captured on their camera, the field of psychology’s focus has determined what’s been studied and understood. The key question we must ask ourselves, as the field continues to evolve, is: ‘Who is not in the picture?’ By broadening our focus, we can avoid the harm caused by exclusion and over-generalisation, and instead capture a more complete and inclusive picture of the human experience.

In the this chapter, in addition to the names often referenced in introductory psychology, there are two Deep Dives (HP.2 and HP.3) to explore the important contributions of those who have been left out of the mainstream narrative about psychology. We’ll see how their insights and methods can offer a more complete and inclusive understanding of the human mind and behaviour. This chapter is not just a recounting of history; it’s an invitation to view psychology through multiple lenses, appreciating the value of each perspective and the depth it adds to our understanding. Rather than trying to find the one theory that explains all human experience, we will learn to appreciate the value in holding the creative tensions among theories.

Image Attributions

Figure HP.1 Hammer and nail by Rachel Lu is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license.