|
‘Miss Conduct’
incorporates psychology background into columns
(July 2008
Issue)
It sounds like a psychology convention joke: "What do a research
psychologist and an advice columnist have in common?" How about:
"They both once did stand-up comedy, taught a psychology class at
Emmanuel College and worked as a publicist for a community theatre
group?"
Okay, it's not really funny. But it's true - and that's even stranger
than fiction.
Cambridge-based writer/actor/comedian/professor/psychology researcher
Robin Abrahams, Ph.D., has a doctorate in psychology from Boston
University, recently completed a two-year visiting professor position
at Emmanuel and is currently working as a research associate at
Harvard Business School, where she studies strategic human resources.
Abrahams has also spent time onstage polishing her standup routine
in Kansas, has been involved in many roles within the theatre world,and
has worked with her husband, Marc Abrahams on the annual Ig Noble
Awards ceremony, of which he is the founder.
In her most recent incarnation, Abrahams has taken on a position
as the etiquette advice columnist for one of the region's top newspapers.
Yes, Abrahams is the face behind the famously quip-filled Miss
Conduct column that runs weekly in The Boston Globe's Sunday magazine
and a correlating Web log found on the Globe's site. It's a position,
says she, for which one cannot acquire specific training but where
all of your life experience comes into play.
Q: How did you become Miss Conduct?
A: The abstract answer is: 'right place right time.' The extended
version is that my doctoral dissertation was on cognitive models
of literary genres, narrative psychology. The director of the Neiman
Conference on Narrative Journalism had invited me to give one of
the smaller talks and it just happened that the Globe was looking
for a new Miss Conduct, and the editor of that section was at the
conference and heard people talking about me. She looked up my bio
and saw that I have Ph.D. in psychology, I've been a writer, I've
been a standup comedian, I have a background in theater. I have
to give her immense credit for thinking outside the box and saying
this might be an interesting person to talk to.
Q: What type of training does one need to become an advice/etiquette
columnist?
A: I don't know. None? There is certainly no league or guild
of advice columnists that I know of. I don't know what training
you need to be etiquette consultant, which I am not.
I have done the basic research, the same thing you'd do to become
an expert in anything else. You read what the other experts have
written; you see where the controversies are in the field, you
read about what questions have not been answered yet and then wade
in and try to create some of the knowledge on your own. I approached
that the way I've approached any other studies I've taken up. It's
just that, frankly, etiquette books are a lot easier to read than
psychology journals and often more amusing.
Q: Especially the ones from the 1950s.
A: Oh yeah, I love those. I have some etiquette books from the
40s, the Emily Post books, and they are wonderful. I will occasionally
quote excerpts from that in my blog or column.
There is a book that was recently re-published in the UK from the
30s - "Don'ts for Husbands" and they also have "Don'ts for Wives."
Gender relations were better in the 30s than they were in the 50s.
There was one in there, "if you treat your wife like a brainless
idiot don't be surprised if she becomes one," which is quite forward
thinking and pretty much in line with what we know about psychology.
Also things like, "if your husband has no fashion sense, forcibly
restrain him if you must but don't make fun of him."
Q: How have you left your mark so far on the field of etiquette
writing?
A: The column has evolved from being about etiquette to becoming
about social behavior of all sorts. It's not about being perfect.
People have this notion that etiquette is about behaving perfectly.
You are going to make mistakes. That's why I am so influenced by
cognitive psychology. You can attempt to predict how people are
likely to make mistakes.
Most of it is about being considerate of other people. You can't
treat everyone as you wish to be treated because not everyone wants
to be treated the way you want to. A lot of it is theory of the
mind, another concept of psychology that has been very important
to me, learning to grasp what someone else's mental model of the
world is and work with that.
Q: How did your experience with stand-up comedy shape your current
work? Does it help with the talks that you give to various groups
as Miss Conduct?
A: I did it for a year or so. It was fun. I liked the chance to
develop my sense of humor and nothing will ever get you over stage
fright like doing that. You tell the joke and they either laugh
or they don't and you have to keep going. With any other kind of
speaking, even if the audience seems bored, you can tell yourself
that tomorrow they will be thinking about how brilliant you were.
There are ways of protecting your ego that simply don't exist in
comedy.
I eventually didn't like it because you're supposed to maintain
a high joke per minute ratio and I was into humor as a way of conveying
certain messages. So there is a lot of humor in the column and in
my blog but the point isn't purely to make you laugh but to get
a point across.
Q: You are also working on a book?
A: The book is titled "Mind over Manners" - it's an etiquette book
for the fault lines of society. The questions I get are about diversity.
Not ethnic diversity in the sort of demographic way, but diversity
of values, priorities and experiences. The chapters are children,
pets, religion, food, money, health and sex and gender. So, you'll
have parents who have different parenting styles, your friend who
insists on taking her dog with her everywhere, being friends with
people of different income levels than yourself, vegetarians and
omnivores - these are the questions that we don't have standard
etiquette answers for yet.
Q: When people find out that you are Miss Conduct, do they attempt
to get your professional advice, like a doctor at a party being
asked about a strange rash?
A: My funniest story on this was when I was getting a medical procedure,
a colonoscopy. They've got me on a gurney with a johnny on, hooked
up to a drip just about to knock me out and the nurse, being wonderful
and trying to recognize me as a person not just a patient, asked
what I do. I told her I write the Miss Conduct column and she started
asking me questions about her daughter getting married.
Q: Did you give her the answers?
A: I think I did before I went under but I don't remember what they
were.
|
