What are the features of a perfect scientist?

What are the features of a perfect scientist? Of course, scientists should exhibit some talent for research, and analytic minds.

But what is the perfect set of personality features for doing in science? My first answer to this question would probably be a combination of patience, internal peace and a portion of healthy madness at the same time. Typically, people refer to this as charisma. 

And, I see the same X factor in all the successful people I know. Indeed, they can hold onto their plans and glue to the computer in peace for long hours every day to push things forward.

According to Duckworth et al. (2007), this kind of grit predicts achievement above and beyond talent.

But at the same time, once they go out to the crowd to present their research, they get dope and release a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm. As a result, it becomes contagious to the audience.

Do You Need to Be a Sociopath to Succeed in Academia?

However, is this all you need? Some theories about success suggest that 60% of all the people occupying high positions in a hierarchy are sociopaths.

Think bosses in a corporation or project leaders in academia or industry. I was thinking about this subject matter for a long time.

And 2016 brought me lots of new thoughts on skillsets that you need to pursue in academia. And I am more and more convinced that what you need in academia is a thick skin.

This could potentially result in some behaviours and reactions usually considered sociopathic. And, is that thick skin nature or nurture?

The point is, once you climb up the ladder, you get more parties involved at each stage. It is no longer just your supervisor.

But also the department, the students, the granting agencies… The number of people who are expecting you to deliver increases each year. And you need to deliver.

And deliver. And deliver.

And especially after you reached some level of success, everyone expects more. In other words, every new project of yours must be at least the same good as the last project you accomplished.

What Do Scientists and DJs Have in Common?

I noticed that there are lots of similarities between the life of a scientist, and a life of a DJ. DJs spend their whole days creating music in the studio, behind closed doors, on their own. Then they go out to the crowd to play the new pieces during huge events.

Once you are successful, everyone expects that you will only produce high-class hit songs from now on. But this is creative work, and you cannot just schedule or order it.

Especially not when you depend on so many people at a time. I saw many interviews with Martin Garrix, currently, the world’s best-rated DJ, in which he mentioned this issue.

Can you then still be faithful to the rules you vowed to yourself at the start of your scientific career in such a situation? Once you go under more and more pressure, you just need to develop that thick skin.

Otherwise, you get overwhelmed and depressed. Does that necessarily imply developing sociopathic traits?

Barely anybody is ever able to face all the expectations and pressure from the environment to keep on producing and keep on achieving new, bigger and bigger, goals. According to Levecque et al.

(2017), one in three PhD students is at risk of a common psychiatric disorder. I noticed that people in academia fall into two groups in terms of coping strategies. 

Which Strategy Do Successful Scientists Choose: Cold or Kind?

Some of them decide to be clear-cut and dry, clarify their priorities and schedule projects and meetings with people according to those priorities. This sometimes means being pushy for their own business, calculated and unwilling to compromise.

Whereas others decide to be ultra-kind to everyone. This often means that they cover their lack of abilities, knowledge or time for executing projects by just networking and connecting large circles of people.

These are just two completely different coping strategies to deal with the same problem. For some reason, people who chose strategy 1 are typically not enjoyed by their inferiors and are considered sociopaths. Meanwhile, people who chose strategy 2 are typically enjoyed by their environment, even though they are equally (if not more) self-oriented than group 1.

According to Fiske, Cuddy and Glick (2007) in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, warmth and competence are the two universal dimensions people use to judge others. Moreover, perceived warmth alone is enough to generate strongly positive social evaluations, largely independent of a person’s actual motives. 

What Is the Best Strategy to Handle the Pressure?

I believe that the best strategy is to become a specialist in some discipline. You need to know it to such an extent that you can spot valuable but doable projects (see: the previous post, ‘Important vs doable’).

And kept on networking – so that you have a good grasp on how much time and effort a given project will take. Plus a network of people which you can delegate tasks to, or get advice from.

According to Woolley, Chabris, Pentland, Hashmi and Malone (2010) in Science, a group’s collective performance depends less on the raw intelligence of its members. Instead, it depends more on how well they complement and socially coordinate with each other. I wonder what I will add to this in a perspective of a few years.