the fact that psychology majors don’t have a reputation as being particularly charismatic or good at relationships or even at managing people is a pretty damning indictment of either academic psychology or college or both
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TBF these are topics not even remotely like the ones covered in psychology courses
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sure but... why not???
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Historical reasons? Academic psychology was behaviorism for decades, and the paradigm after that was the cognitive revolution. Neither of them are "how do you be", they're very much "how does it work"
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The more humanistic side of psychology was torn between Social Psychology (the situation matters) and Personality Psychology (the person matters).
For some reason Social Psych won and ate Personality, but again neither of them are about being charismatic or having relationships
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This is kind of like "why are medical researchers not more flexible". Well they study it, they don't do it. If you want flexible, go to a practitioner like a gymnast or an acrobat.
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i think the closer comparison would be like "why are doctors not unusually healthy" although doctors at least have the excuse that they're super busy being doctors all the time
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the rhetorical point i'm trying to make is how does anyone know whether any academic psychology is useful or true at all if nobody who studies it acquires a reputation for being good at understanding people
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That's just not really engaging with the questions as academic psychology understands itself (though its goals are dubious in other ways). Auto engineers are trying to make the best cars, not become the most skilled drivers.
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i'm still confused about the distance you see between academic psychology and the ordinary idea of understanding people. you wouldn't necessarily expect auto engineers to be good at driving but you might expect them to *know more about cars than most people*
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similarly: are philosophers any more ethical than other people?
the answer seems to be "no"
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Of course, a lot of philosophy isn't about ethics.
But, concerningly, philosophers tend to be more miserable than others -- suggesting that it's the _examined_ life that's not worth living.
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