So I recently visited one of my favorite high schools (Harding Charter Prep in Oklahoma City), where I talked a little bit about my research to some AP Psychology students. Their teacher, Tom Kindinger, is kind enough to invite me each semester, and I really get a kick out of it. Not only do I get some great questions from his students about peer relationships, popularity, and getting ready for college, I get to ask actual teens what they think about the kinds of topics I study. Not in a research-y way–I’m not there to study them–but in a “Why do you think teens do that?” kind of way. I get some kind of cool idea for a study almost every time I go.

A couple of years ago, I got a question that totally floored me, because it made me realize how easy it is to get the wrong impression about research (and how important it is for researchers to explain their work as carefully as possible, to avoid misunderstandings). After I described how peer relations researchers use classroom- or grade-based sociometric assessments–peer nominations or ratings–to study peer status, a guy raised his hand and asked how kids handle being told that they’re rejected. He interpreted my explanation to mean that researchers go back into the schools to inform participants of their peer status. Yikes.

While I’ve only gotten that question once, I know better than to think that he’s the only person who has ever wondered that same thing.

So, for anyone who has ever wondered: No, we do not share individual research results with our participants. To do so would be not only terribly unethical and just plain mean in many cases, but it’s also a potential threat to the reliability of the data.

I think a lot of people assume we share our results with the kids because we’re psychologists–we’re supposed to be helping, right? And maybe “helping” involves letting kids know how their peers really see them, so that they can make decisions or changes based on that information. But in this case, that information would rarely be helpful, and would often be harmful. Thus, we don’t disclose individual results at all, unless we are concerned about the safety of a participant (and 1) this is rare, and 2) it’s a whole other post).

Many (most?) people don’t realize that the majority of psychologists don’t provide any kind of direct counseling or other services at all—thousands of us are academic psychologists, with careers aimed at understanding thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and brains. We do research. (And teach. Also another post.) Indirectly, we are helping, because we’re doing the research that leads to the development of therapeutic techniques, or prevention or intervention programs, or educational practices, or child welfare policy. But we leave the direct helping to our clinical and counseling psychology colleagues, who are specially trained to provide counseling services. And that’s the way you want it. You definitely don’t want me telling your child that 60% of his peers nominated him as “someone I like the least.” But you do want me studying your rejected child (or your popular child, or your average child, or your bullied child)—because it’s my research, and the research of my academic colleagues, that will ultimately teach us how to help children feel safe and happy at school. And that helps everyone.