<p>"A study carried out by psychology researchers in Sweden has shown that people who go into engineering are less caring and empathetic than those who enter professions such as medicine."</p>
<p>Can anyone who works in engineering concur or disagree with this?</p>
<p>Engineers</a> are cold and dead inside, research shows ? The Register</p>
<p>Oh no, the jig is up. </p>
<p>We are living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. We are Terminators - “Hasta la vista baby”. </p>
<p>It’s funny, the article compare the students, but the engineers I know are “warm and bursting with empathy and love”, and many doctors I know are “cold-hearted and uncaring, remorseless human machines”. </p>
<p>Perhaps engineering life proves more satisfying than engineering school, where the opposite is true in medicine. </p>
<p>More likely it’s total baloney. </p>
<p>Watch where you walk around this article so you don’t step in it.</p>
<p>I was thinking the same thing. I’ve met some computer engineers at Google and Facebook, and they were one of the nicest people I’ve met. They were polite when I ask them questions, gave me and other people advice, and their personal contact information. When I met doctors and people who work in business, they had this pompous attitude towards me. When I asked them questions, they seemed very uninterested with what they are doing. I remember one doctor telling me she did this for the money, just flat out. When I talked to the engineers at Facebook and Google, they were ecstatic to discuss programming, going to workshops, visiting high schools and colleges to give career advice, and how they actually loved their job. Doctors, even at the doctor office, seem disengaged</p>
<p>Howdy yo’all doing good today? I definately disagree with this post…I like to be good engineer ME that is some day…however, I am also good at Sales and have done MLM, etc. Bottom line is I am caring, down to earth and I am Country…and love country music. We treat yo’all like family with respect and we are not like those Swedes…yo’all gotta to know Southern Hospitality rules.</p>
<p>from the abstract for the actual journal article (link is in article linked by OP):</p>
<p>
[quote]
These results raise questions regarding opportunities for engineering students to develop their empathic abilities. It is important that engineering students acquire both theoretical and practical knowledge and skills regarding empathy.
[quote]
</p>
<p>“It is important…” hmm- rather subjective and “preachy” for scientific researchers!!</p>
<p>I saw the title and figured this had to be a flame… this is a serious post? Whaaaaaaaaaa?</p>
<p>^it’s a link to a research I found,</p>
<p>Well, research can’t lie, ti must be true. Hot damn.</p>
<p>It’s hard to believe this was published on the basis of scientific fact.</p>
<p>Didn’t read the article but only the abstract (didn’t want to pay real money for the “pleasure” of reading it). </p>
<p>People come in all kinds of personalities. I have met engineers and non-engineers, some are caring, some not. </p>
<p>What does seem to set engineers apart is their logical approach to most things and that engineering seems to attach more than it’s share of introverts. Some people may interpret those personality traits as uncaring. </p>
<p>I would venture to guess that the researchers (a “trick-cyclist” !?!?!) didn’t dig deep enough into the feelings of the engineers to determine what they were really feeling and instead just had them fill out the “well-established questionnaire”.</p>
<p>Besides; what is the point of the “research”? What do you do with the conclusions? Sorry, just the engineer in me coming out asking those questions.</p>
<p>@NeoDymium I never said it was true…</p>
<p>is this a research thingy?..momma said, it aint a popular one unless being talked at Oprah Show like that bicycle-man Lance…LOL…(yo’all…momma loves Oprah)</p>
<p>Not true! I love my dog</p>
<p>“The computing students, once gender effects had been eliminated, actually came out basically the same as medical and caring types: they had turned out to be normal, warm, caring human beings. It was in fact the physics-based classical engineers who were dead inside.”</p>
<p>I was an engineer for several years and not only was I cold and dead inside, i started growing teeth that looked like fangs, light was burning my skin and I was craving to bite people and the craving for blood was unbearable. </p>
<p>I moved into IT, became a vegetarian, but I still like working on my laptop in the dark.</p>
<p>Maybe it shows a healthy disdain for filling out psychology questionnaires and a lack of empathy for trick-cyclist psychology majors. I have the habit of filling in or circling all "1"s because that is the fastest way to be done with it.</p>
<p>I can’t stop laughing at these posts LOL</p>
<p>psychology tests are seldomly accurate… </p>
<p>I too have never fill in serious answers so there might be a chance that they refer to bogus info</p>
<p>Past the sensationalist headline, I’m sure the study’s conclusion has merit. I’ve worked with a number of engineers, and noted that engineers tend to have similar personalities: reserved, intelligent, less conversational than average, and usually uncomfortable in social settings. Many engineers don’t get promoted into management positions because they’re social skills are relatively weak and their salesmanship sometimes non-existent. Promotions into upper-management, even in engineering and industrial-related male-dominated industries, require strong people-management skills that aren’t even addressed in engineering programs’ curriculum. I’ve noted that some of the weakest engineering students that I knew in my undergrad days have had the most career advancement, because they had stronger social skills, while the shy-guy egg-heads remained rank-and-file engineers staffing projects.</p>
<p>I think the “people skill” factor is also reflected in the relative quick career peaking that occurs for many male engineers. Meanwhile, the business major C+ student salesforce guys often move up and earn more quicker.</p>
<p>
As a computing professional, I can totally agree with this article, on the basis of the excerpt quoted above. I am a “normal, warm, caring human being”. You’re a bunch of robots.</p>
<p>I was going to respond but then I decided that I really didn’t care.</p>