My main problem when people use any of these above terms when getting into an discussion is that the person nitpicking and such may simply know the material or subject matter more than you do. I’ve been in discussions with people in which they say I’m splitting hairs or nitpicking. However what they don’t realize is obviously if we’re on the topic of psychology which is what I do know, is there are very subtle derivations in concepts, definitions and so forth. I’ve already spoke to this regarding transphobia. People utilize the term transphobia when it’s not a phobia technically. The people questioning being transgendered simply have a linguistic consideration on their mind of which is important. As an example I remember back in college that they did distinguish between biological sex and gender, and that was over 20 years ago. So for me this whole new world of making a big deal of trans people is boring and redundant. I will give an example outside of the realm of psychology proper.

Think about rocks and geology for a moment. I remember meeting a friend‘s younger brother who went into engineering. I asked him what he did and it was something about drilling through rock for natural gas. Upon further discussion with him it turns out that you really have to know the different types of rocks you’re dealing with and how you will be drilling through them literally for safety considerations. If I remember correctly his job was to actually identify the types of rocks for the rest of the crew who drill through them. Now just for a moment in your own head think of all the different types of rock you know. I could probably name five. Funny fact as a great example I was at the beach up in the north west with a friend. I saw this very beautiful round stone and I picked it up and my friend said oh yeah that’s a lava rock. I said what? What the hell is a lava rock. She looked at me as though I was an absolute idiot. She said it’s when the lava flows into the ocean and it is flash cooled and it turns into rock. Now, know when it’s explained it makes sense. However I had no idea until the age of 38/39 what a lava rock was. I didn’t know they existed. I don’t remember learning about them in my science class back in junior high or anything like that. However this guy I was talking to, has to know all the different types of rocks that exist and which ones are safe to drill through and how to drill through them and which type of bit to use and other considerations I have no idea about. So when it comes to nitpicking or splitting hairs most commonly used terms, you could say he’s nitpicking over the type of rock, however if you drill through the wrong rock according to him it’s potentially very dangerous/deadly when you’re dealing with gas pockets. So for those of you who are reading this and don’t know anything about geology and rocks that might come as a surprise as it did to me.

Another example of nitpicking or splitting hairs comes to behavioral things. I know of someone who is a professional stage hypnotist and has been doing this now for coming up on 20 years. People always say that the people up on stage are faking it or (for a different discussion on the brain wave research)… how do you know they are really hypnotized? This individual has been able to over these years of practice honed the skill and the ability through observation of figuring out very very subtle behavioral movements and timing of when those movements occur in relation to what he says to understand who is hypnotized. As a result of all of this practice and education he can tell if a person is actually hypnotized or even if they are but they’re uncomfortable up on stage. Then he asks those people to step down. He is paying attention to exceedingly subtle movements of the face, twitches, shoulders, hands etc. things that you and I would never pay attention to or even be aware is a “thing” to be aware of. Whereas he notices them immediately. Now of course if he were to sit and give you an educational lecture on this you would end up saying oh yeah of course that does make sense. But basically what he did is just educate you as to what to look for and you didn’t know that in advance. This is what a good instructor does is they explain some thing that makes so much sense that you think you knew it all along when you actually did not. However that’s for a different blog post.

So specifically back to psychology I get this all the time when I sit and differentiate between different words that are being used that are in psychology. There’s a very big difference between being clinically depressed and a person who is merely sad. There are many academic papers written on the difference between being clinically depressed, and merely being sad there’s a difference between the two concepts. Also in the psychology of emotions and such their is a difference between a mood and emotion and feeling. However generally I usually give a free pass to people who will use them interchangeably oh he’s depressed today. Sure go ahead and use that but the problem is when you start getting into clinical terminology I tend to get very sensitive.

Many people misuse psychological terms and then accuse me of nitpicking and such. I usually have to correct them. I will end up saying oh you’re thinking of suppression not repression because they’re two totally different concepts psychologically. Repression is hard if not in fact impossible to show via experimental research. I mean after all it was a freudian concept. Suppression on the hand can be shown empirically through systematic studies.

Also, as a debate this strategy of people saying I’m nitpicking is simply because they do not understand the depth of the concept at hand. So they’re using it as a red herring to be able to not address the point I am making that completely tears apart their entire argument. It completely infuriates me. In particular if the differentiation of the concept was the crux of their entire argument. By saying I’m nitpicking, they can evade my point which is/was correct to maintain their position. It is in my assessment a very pathetic and weak position to take. This is also why I try to dissuade people from arguing against me when it comes to psychology, philosophy of science or science in general.