#84 There is No Average Individual: The Great Psychology Delusion with Marek McGann

Send a love messageThe Great Psychology Delusion: Why the Mean Misleads and Pluralism MattersRead the book here.This is an academic psychology-focused episode with lecturer Marek McGann, whose work spans enactive cognitive science, embodiment, politics, feminist philosophy, and STS. Andrea and Marek discuss his co-authored book The Great Psychology Delusion with Craig Speelman. McGann explains why “delusion” fits psychology’s persistence in treating long-critiqued assumptions as valid, especially the aggregation delusion: averaging group data and applying it to individuals despite human non-interchangeability and change over time, linked to the ergodic assumption and ergodic theorem conditions rarely met in human behavior. They discuss how averaging can create misleading “laws” (e.g., power law of learning), the research–practice gap in clinical work, psychology’s history and method-driven identity, and the need for disciplined, pluralistic, scale-aware science that better integrates perspectives and practitioner expertise.00:00 Show Intro And Guest01:23 Book Thesis And Stakes02:24 Aggregation Delusion Explained03:54 Research Practice Gap04:49 More Detailed Book Summary07:47 Averaging Artifacts And Ergodicity09:29 Careful Critique Not Anti Psychology11:06 Warm Reorientation Sendoff11:51 Conversation Begins15:17 Why Call It Delusion20:11 How Psychology Became Method Led31:08 Aggregation Delusion Deep Dive33:35 Ergodic Fallacy in Humans35:21 Scale Slippage and Delusion37:59 Research Practice Gap Explained41:01 Clinician Code Switching42:46 Many Scales of Mind43:57 MRI Averaging Pitfalls48:32 Method Silos and Identities52:43 Care, Careers, and Canalization55:27 GPS Model for Pluralism01:00:33 Pluralism Not Relativism01:02:58 Why Marek Cares01:06:06 Psychology’s Moment of Change01:06:56 Closing Thanks and WrapMarek McGann has been a lecturer in the Department of Psychology since 2005. His principal research is theoretical work on the enactive approach to cognitive science, which examines the mind more as something we do rather than something we have. This is also related to ecological approaches to psychology, which explore how behaviour and mental life can be examined by looking at what your head is in, rather than what is in your head. He also has a related interest in critical considerations of theory and scientific practice in psychology more broadly.Marek co-convenes the ENSO Seminars, a series of online seminars with researchers from enactive and ecological cognitive science.The paper Andrea mentions: Facing LifeBuy Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness by Andrea HiottSign up for Making Ways newsletter and projects.Full intro and notes here.Care is not the opposite of love. It is the very urge of life. 'Caring for what?' is the primary question. That we have a choice about what we care for and how is what makes us human, but it's quite the challenge and responsibility. Let's help one another handle it.Support the showBuy Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness by Andrea HiottSign up for Making Ways newsletter and projects.Please rate and review with love. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Substack.