Inside the world of psychology guru Salovey

MIKE MARSLAND/OPA

Periodically, the Herald will ask a current Yale professor to share his or her thoughts on personal and professional topics relevant to the Yale community. For our first installment, the Herald caught up with popular psychology professor Peter Salovey, GRD '86.

Yale Herald: What's the most important thing you've ever taught a Yalie? What's the most important thing a Yalie's ever taught you?

Peter Salovey: Yalies always teach me to live life to the fullest. The range of their intellectual and non-intellectual pursuits is so impressive, and it inspires me to try to do the same. It's hard for me to know the most important thing I've ever taught to a Yalie—we'd have to ask them. When my Introductory Psychology course inspires students who never thought that they wanted to study psychology to actually do so, that makes me very happy. I would also add that last year my band, the Professors of Bluegrass, was nearly all composed of talented Yalies. And I think what I was able to teach them was how to be patient with someone who has less talent and skill than they do.

YH: What is the one book, idea, or skill all Yalies should be required to know before graduation?

PS: No question about it: to write clearly and persuasively. Perhaps also to play a bluegrass instrument and to sing in a high tenor.

YH: If Yale and New Haven were a famous couple, who would they be? Why?

PS: Perhaps Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall? Passionately interdependent but still a bit rough around the edges. YH: Where do you live? How much time do you spend in New Haven?

PS: My family and I live in New Haven, so when not travelling this is where I am. I love New Haven and have been here for almost 19 years. We now live in the Prospect Hill neighborhood right next to Edgerton Park, which is terrific. But I've also lived in Westville, East Rock, and Fair Haven Heights. The character of these different neighborhoods is one of the special features of New Haven. I think New Haven is one of the most underrated cities in America—for a relatively small city, we have top-shelf theater, music, ethnic restaurants, bookstores, nearly anything one could ask for. Although the shoreline and the woods are beautiful, you really couldn't pay me to live in the 'burbs. I walk to work every morning. At different times in my life here, I've tried to help out in different ways with respect to the City. For example, I served on the Ward 19 Democratic Party Committee, and the City has made me a Justice of the Peace, which probably sounds more impressive than it actually is. I've lived in New Haven longer than anywhere else in my life.

YH: What was your first impression of New Haven? What was your last?

PS: I grew up in New Jersey just outside of New York City. My mother's family was from Brooklyn and my father's was from the Bronx. Nonetheless, I came to New Haven in 1981 having spent the middle and late '70s in California, the last year in San Francisco. And as I pulled into town in my Dodge Colt with a U-Haul trailer in tow, I remember thinking how old the East Coast looks. California always seemed like they put it up yesterday and might take it down tomorrow. This place has been here forever. The humidity was something I had forgotten about in California too.

YH: What's your favorite store on Broadway?

PS: No question: Cutler's. I'm also a fan of the York Square Theater.

YH: If you could be any other faculty member at Yale, who would you be and why?

PS: When I was a graduate student, I used to have a monthly lunch with President A. Bartlett Giamatti, SY '60, GRD '64. Bart was inspiring as a scholar and as someone who you loved even when you disagreed with him. And to have two careers—one as an academic and then one in professional baseball—well, it's a boy's dream come true.

Photo by Mike Marsland, OPA.

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