• Question: Did People ever doubt you because of your apperance?(you dont look like a mad scientist

    Asked by zeatat to Ben, James, Jen, Susanna on 20 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Susanna Martin

      Susanna Martin answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      Quite embarrassingly I have been mistaken for a school student when i’ve been doing research in schools. I think this is because I look quite young (I nearly always get ID’d in shops – even once for buying a 12 dvd!) but also i’m quite short so often the students will be taller than me. This can make it hard to have any authority, but generally once I start talking and explaining my work people will listen.

    • Photo: Jen Todd Jones

      Jen Todd Jones answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      Hey zea!

      Not all scientists are mad and not all mad people are scientists 😉 but you’re right, the stereotypical concept of a scientists is a crazy guy in a white coat with mad hair, right? None of us look like this, and in fact psychologists in general don’t wear lab coats since it implies an authority that changes the way people think about us. Like I said in the chat I actually had dreadlocks for many years, and people were sometimes shocked to find that I was a brain scientist because they had judged me by the way I looked. You don’t have to be a stereotypical scientist, but sometimes it helps when people need to take you seriously. Like Susie says, though, once we start speaking people will tend to understand who we are 🙂

      Jen

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