Ted Cascio (Editor) - House and Psychology: Humanity Is Overrated

Copyright 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

House and psychology: humanity is overrated / edited by Ted V. Cascio and Leonard
M. Martin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-94555-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-11458-2 (ebk);
ISBN 978-1-118-11459-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-11460-5 (ebk)
1. Helping behavior. 2. Personality. I. Cascio, Edward V., date.
II. Martin, Leonard M., date.
BF637.H4H68 2011
791.4572.dc23
2011024781

Acknowledgments: Literary Health Assurance

This project was truly a team effort. Please join us in expressing gratitude to those who chipped in.

First and foremost, we would like to thank our amazing contributors, without whom this book would have been impossible. Their extraordinary scholarship, literacy, and diligence rendered our work as editors about as easy as making Scarlett Johansson look pretty (House in Fetal Position). Muchas gracias a todos y todas!

For providing creative and editorial feedback, we are grateful to Laura Buffardi, Edward J. Jackson, and Patricia and Joseph Cascio, as well as to students from our adjustment and social psychology courses at the University of Georgia (and, in particular, for his extremely valuable assistance locating quotes, thanks to Timothy Pierce-Tomlin!).

Introduction

An Ailment-Free Primer

Take caution: youre about to enter the extraordinary mental universe of the brilliant, bombastic, bile-belching doctor of medicine referred to simply as House. Hows that for a hook? No good? Okay, scratch that. Lets get a little closer to the subject. If a real hook were to become elongated and flame-tipped, it would embody something relevant to House, namely, his cane. This book is about objects such as flame-tipped canes, giant tennis balls, monster trucks, Game Boys, and adult magazines; well... not really. If you believe that, then you may need to be admitted under the care of a certain eminent diagnostician (whod frankly be happy to take your case to get out of clinic duty). Relax, you probably have time to swing by the bookstore register before you start hemorrhaging rectal blood.

Lets try this again. Youre reading this book to gain a fresh, sophisticated perspective on House and the other members of the Princeton-Plainsboro staff, right? Youre a smart person. Youre an enthusiastic fan of House , youre looking for something fun to read, and you have the urge to learn what other smart people think about one of your favorite TV shows. (Okay, I think were on the right track now.)

If so, youre not alone. Adoring audiences around the world seek a deeper understanding of House , an amazingly complex show just spoiling for careful and incisive analysis. Reading this book will enable you to become not only an even smarter person in general, but a smart fan of House in particular (that is, you may experience increased intracranial pressure). What you do with your new, enlightened perspective is completely up to you: impress your friends, write a term paper, post on Internet House forums... whatever. Or, you could simply bask in the glory of the newfound heights of your House fanaticism. This book is meant to bolster your House expertise by imparting psychological principles. It is ultimately intended to be fun but not completely frivolous, which, come to think of it, echoes the overall tone of House perfectly. House himself just might consider this book cool.

Of course, another possibility is that House would dismiss everything here as pretentious psychobabble. We (the editors) have taken every precaution to avoid including anything flimsy or resonant with pop psychology in this book. In other words, dont expect the sort of soothing platitudes and affirmations found on Dr. Phil . Since some of you are here primarily to take a peek at the holy grail of knowledge that research psychologists have unearthed (i.e., youre here to learn more about psychology for itself and for its own sake), this book is chock-full of scientifically valid, research-based psychological knowledge; so much so, that it would serve quite well as a supplemental text for psychology instructors at high schools and universities. As instructors ourselves, we cant think of a better way to make learning psychology fun.

We solicited essays from well-respected research psychologists, and we ended up with an awesome group of world-renowned experts who also happen to love House. This book comprises an anthology of the essays submitted to us by these experts. Each essay examines instances and characters from House through the lens of psychological theory and research. While some essays deal with a topic or topics that you will naturally find more interesting than others, we think that all of them focus on subject matter that is generally appealing and fundamental to House. Our objectives as editors were to celebrate House , as well as disabuse you, the reader, of certain illusions you may have about human nature. We are pretty sure that House, the man who once said that humanity is overrated, would endorse those aims and recommend this book to his many, many friends.

So join us as we decrypt the diagnosticians and solve the psychological puzzles of Princeton-Plainsboro!

PART ONE

The Good: Unlimited Vicodin