Narcissism in Power: We Know How It Ends

"A good theory, like a good map, tells you what you're seeing around you. It also allows for accurate prediction. If you take road A and turn right at distance B, you'll arrive at destination C. If you mix substance A with substance B, you'll get chemical reaction C. If you launch object A at velocity B and angle C, it will land at point D, etc."

"Part of our charge is to construct knowledge-based theories that will be useful to individuals and society by helping us navigate that terrain. Good psychological science allows us to predict how certain humans will act or feel under certain conditions. Place personality A under condition B, and you'll get outcome C. Put an extraverted person alone in the back room to shuffle papers, and you'll likely get a bored, frustrated worker. Put them at the front desk to greet customers, and they're likely to perform better"

"Thus, all we can say is that people who share the psychological profile of person A are likely to act in way B under circumstance C. We can't know for sure that person A will act in this way, but the odds are high. We can confidently predict that people with depression are more likely to attempt suicide than non-depressed people (all else being equal); yet we cannot predict with confidence which individuals in the depressed group will attempt suicide."

Science provides practical guidance by following evidence to build knowledge organized into theories that function as maps of terrain. Good theories describe observed phenomena and enable accurate prediction of outcomes across domains. Psychology focuses on mind and behavior, constructing evidence-based theories to guide individual and societal action. Psychological science predicts likely behaviors for people with shared traits in given circumstances, though not with absolute certainty for individuals. Motives often remain partly obscured by deception or self-delusion, so converging evidence across methods is required to strengthen inferences about causes and likely outcomes.

Read at Psychology Today