Source: René Magritte, L'Empire des Lumières.
Every year, students following their third year in psychology and educational sciences at the university of Brussels have to prepare a "project" loosely related to a set theme, common to all students. The theme must be very broad so that it can be approached in all subfields of these disciplines. This year, it is "paradoxes". I was asked by the coordinators of this activity to deliver a short lecture on what my subfield (social psychology) has to say about this.
After scratching my head a few times, the importance of paradoxes in the development of psychological science in general, and social psychology especially, became quickly obvious. Below is the outcome of my (preliminary) musings on this "set piece".
