ABSTRACT
From the beginning of my career as a scientifically working psychologist, I felt I had to struggle with alleged opposites, calling for exclusive decisions between seemingly incompatible goals with no bridges between them. For example, there seemed to be an opposite relation between being a good teacher and being a good researcher, being interested in psychological contents or merely in methodological topics, quantitative and qualitative procedures, and realist or constructivist confessions. When applying for academic jobs, I learned that one should not try to have it both ways, being a social psychologist as well as a cognitive or non-social experimental psychologist. Working in two areas might be perceived like adultery. However, of all these opposition myths, one of the most persistent ones is the claim that theoreticians cannot be practitioners, and vice versa. In spite of Kurt Lewin’s often cited phrase that there is nothing more practical than a good theory, the scientific community continues to presuppose that theories are largely detached from practical problem solving. Being concerned with refined theories-particularly, with formal or sophisticated ones that go way beyond common sense-is one thing. But being concerned with practical everyday problems is a completely different thing, fully out of reach from the theoretician’s vantage point.
