NEWS
Self-assured and well-read, smart and forthright. With the perfect blend of humor and knowledge, psychologist Mattias Lundberg takes up the fight against myths and lies within a sometimes unprofessional field.
“WHY DON'T WE MEET up and have a chat? I’ve got four hours to spare in Lycksele next week ...” The year is 2001, and the voice on the phone belongs to Lasse Eriksson, nationally renowned comedian and author, whom Mattias Lundberg had bumped into a short time before during a themed day in Umeå. They then spoke really quickly about working together, and in Lycksele the duo really found each other. While the contents of Hotel Lappland’s coffee machine were being emptied they put together a draft for a three-hour lecture about various roles and personalities at work.
The timing was perfect. In the early 2000s the speaker industry experienced a big boom nationwide — whilst at the same time Mattias Lundberg left academia to work as a occupational-healthcare consultant. The successful lecture ‘Everyone’s different — apart from me!’ was the beginning of his career in the limelight, and for three years it toured Sweden.
“Lasse had a huge stage presence, and became my biggest role model and mentor. He was unbelievably good at providing feedback — giving me tips about how I should speak, stand and move in order to project. I learnt a huge amount from him, especially a love for the stage — and the more people there were in the audience the more fun it was,” says Mattias Lundberg, twelve years later in his room in the Department of Psychology. After ‘Everyone’s different...’ there followed several stage assignments, including as a lecturer together with the stand-up comedian Janne Bylund in the production ‘Jäkla människa!’ (Dreadful Person), and as a moderator in various contexts. For as long as Mattias Lundberg can remember he has consciously challenged himself and has sought new approaches and situations whereby he can try out his ideas and thoughts.
Mattias Lundberg
Title: Licensed psychologist and psychotherapist, associate professor in the Department of Psychology. Age: 42 Leisure interests: Cooking, fishing, hunting birds and small game in the mountains. On the bedside table: At the moment just the TV remote control. Tv: On the psychology front: Frasier. Otherwise: Sport! Favorite dish: Freshly boiled pitepalt potato dumplings Mattias Lundberg has been nominated for the psychology prize Stora Psykologpriset 2013.
“I need stimulation, and get a real fillip from feeling that I’m moving forwards and developing. But that doesn’t need to mean I have to be seen and make appearances, or even be specially active. It can very well be a matter of going to a good concert, cutting film sequences on the computer or sitting silently over a mug of coffee with my fishing pals.
THE DRIVING FORCE behind finding new experiences and environments started during his childhood in Älvsbyn “A small community that you know like the palm of your hand and where you know everybody”. Initially he was in the process of becoming a chef. After two years at gymnasium he worked in restaurant kitchens in Riksgränsen and Luleå, and also found the time to spend a month as an apprentice on an oil tanker.
“I still like cooking, but the problem was that in those days chefs were shut up in a kitchen behind a pair of swing doors. I wanted to see people and spend time with them.”
That was one of the reasons why he applied for the psychology programme at Umeå. He got in straight away, and started in 1992. A year later he got a job as memory tester in the extensive Betula Project, and this opened up the door to the world of research. His dissertation, which was about the connection between nature and nurture, was completed in 1999. Then it was time to seek new challenges again. He started up his own consultancy, and pretty soon the company was bought up by the occupational-healthcare company Feelgood, which in other words he was involved in establishing in Umeå. But the contact with academia was never completely severed, and when he became the father of twin boys in 2008 it felt right to go back.
Mattias Lundberg is now the Director of Studies, and is in charge of the psychology programmes, but part of his job is a collaborative remit. His role includes supporting researchers who want to learn to popularise their research something that more and more funders are requiring. He thinks the concept of collaboration needs broadening, so it is not just interpreted as entailing innovations and products. And talk about a ‘third remit’ is easily interpreted as being something that can be done when there’s time to spare.
“The collaboration involves an exchange of knowledge, and must be integrated with the other activities. There should be a promotion mechanism for researchers and teachers who are good at their job and have a burning enthusiasm for this,” he says, and draws a comparison with the new recognitions system for skilled teachers.
“An excellent mechanism,” says Mattias Lundberg, “would be to arrange special courses in stage presentation and in speaking and expressing yourself clearly. The university should also improve its creation of arenas for raising awareness of research.
“Why not arrange a big, recurrent popular-science event that can be filmed and disseminated using social media? That would give the university a good reputation and be a cheap way of being at the cutting edge.”
HE KNOW'S WHAT HE'S talking about. At the end of 2011 he took the initiative of organising the talkshow-style evening event Psychological Salon, which he hosted and in which he spoke about current research with specially invited guests in a pub setting. The salons went down well with the public, and Mattias Lundberg thinks one of the keys to their success was the choice of premises.
“We have to get away from the traditional approach of trying to attract people to campuses. It’s far better to use environments people are used to and feel relaxed in.”
He is well aware that many people at the university do not share his love of the stage or feel attracted by being seen and expressing themselves using media, and he has great respect for this situation, but he nevertheless thinks that all researchers can and should contribute in the public arena in some way.
“Some people are good at writing articles for debate and popular-science texts, whilst others maybe prefer blogging about their research. You just need to find a way that feels right.”
Modern technology also offers new approaches for Mattias Lundberg — since March he has been recording, cutting and publishing the video podcast ‘Rock’n’roll research’ together with his colleague Stefan Söderfjell. Just as with the musical style, the films need to be light-hearted, amusing and direct. And a degree of entertainment and humour is included in most things he does— not least in the popular-science books he has written about stereotypes amongst men, women and workmates. He is careful, however, not to play around with and simplify people’s behaviour too much, and what he says is always firmly rooted in scientific facts. One constant irritation is the many myths surrounding psychology, and the unprofessional so-called experts who are over-keen to exploit and dilute people’s ideas.
Two examples of the ‘truths’ being put about are the assertion that there is a big difference between the way women think and the way men think, and the assertion that we only use 10% of our brain capacity. Mattias Lundberg is not one to hesitate about going for the jugular.
“It’s in universities that you find a depth of knowledge, and as researchers we have a responsibility to present facts and counter-arguments — if we don’t enter the fray, who’s going to?”
This article was the profile story of the June 2013 issue of Aktum, the magazine for faculty and staff at Umeå University.
