Historical interview: the following preserves the research experiences and personal views expressed in the original manuscript.
PUA stands for “pick-up artist.” It originally referred to techniques for men approaching women, purportedly teaching men a systematic sequence of steps to make someone fall for them. As culture changed, its meaning came to include techniques that use particular routines, suggestion, and hypnotic influence to make someone obey unquestioningly or even act irrationally. In recent years, the term’s usage has continued to evolve: manipulating another person’s behavior in any interpersonal relationship may now be described as PUA.
Graduate students: alongside your pursuit of scholarship, have you ever felt intense pressure or fear when meeting your supervisor or receiving an email from them? Have you repeatedly doubted your research ability, or even considered quitting? Are these extreme negative emotions connected to that person?
Most supervisors fulfill the basic responsibilities of teaching and mentoring, and some do everything they can to help and support students as they develop. We respect and appreciate them. Nevertheless, a few ignore students’ voices and repeatedly wound their self-esteem with absurd demands, pushing them beyond their psychological limits without the students necessarily recognizing what is happening.
So, do you recognize PUA in academia?
Have you experienced PUA in academia?
Question 01: What does PUA in research workplaces look like to you?
Grape-Skin Eater: I have heard of professors who monitor attendance very aggressively. [In one organic chemistry group, the professor counted how many chromatography columns each student ran in a week and ranked everyone. The student who ran the most columns was rewarded; the one who ran the fewest was scolded. This professor also often held group meetings after ten on Saturday nights and called the laboratory at Christmas and New Year, rewarding anyone still working there on holiday evenings.]
Many people quit that group, and even those who stayed were deeply affected: they felt that the slightest slackening meant they were letting their supervisor and research down. As I recall, I do not think anyone from that group continued doing research after graduating. To me, that laboratory represents a very typical case of PUA in academia.
Under this kind of PUA, students see research as sacred, and any slight relaxation becomes a betrayal of it. That mindset may produce results in the short term, such as papers appearing quickly, and many supervisors may achieve good output because of it. Over the long term, however, nobody can keep going indefinitely.
My younger cousin went to the United States on an exchange last year, and her supervisor had similar problems, monitoring attendance extremely strictly. I became very concerned because she was already showing signs of being affected by PUA. [She told me, “Am I unable to do anything right? Is that why I cannot get results?”] At that point, she needed a strong outside voice to tell her, “This is not your fault. If something you try does not work, you have to try repeatedly. That is normal in research.”
It is a very good development that people are beginning to pay attention to PUA at work or in academia. Only when more people tell us that this behavior is wrong do we reflect and realize that the problem is often not our own fault. That can help more promising researchers stay in the field.
Tin Foil: could this example instead be a case of her working so hard that she has greater expectations of the results? If those expectations are not met, she may blame herself, ask whether she is still not working hard enough, and enter a vicious cycle.
Grape-Skin Eater: yes, but her supervisor created that feeling of “not working hard enough.” The supervisor put her under considerable pressure, including personal attacks—for example, calling on weekends and directly berating her upon finding she was not in the laboratory.
Bubble Dragon: there are three clear indicators for judging PUA. The first is a subjectively malicious motive. If a supervisor checks attendance without malice and simply hopes you will produce more, that is not PUA. Some students are introverted or so afraid of their supervisor that they are unwilling or afraid to communicate proactively. They may encounter difficulties but not tell the supervisor, simply keeping their heads down and working hard. If the supervisor is acting out of genuine concern and goodwill, I do not think it should be considered PUA. If, however, the supervisor maliciously undermines your confidence—for example, using attendance checks to crush it and deny your value as a person—then it may come closer to PUA.
The second indicator is that it happens over a long period and frequently: the suppression or malicious behavior is sustained and repeated. The third is that it goes beyond reasonable, normal boundaries. [Many students in our laboratory have had problems: nervous exhaustion, dropping out, falling out with the supervisor, being dismissed by the supervisor, and even serious psychological problems. Almost every student who comes out of our group feels as though they have emerged from a pile of dead bodies—that is how extreme it is. Every PhD student in our group has sought professional psychological help, including me.]
Our supervisor is actually an exceptionally capable person, online and working every second from four in the morning until midnight, and working very efficiently. He therefore expects everyone in the group to be just like him.
I find it difficult to judge whether this is PUA, because it does not really meet the malicious-intent criterion. Yet it certainly happens repeatedly over time and makes students lose confidence completely. He often makes you feel guilty, as though doing something badly means creating trouble that he must then clean up. No matter how hard you work, you have to keep working harder; if you do not, you are wasting your life and the opportunity he has given you. He disparages you on one side and encourages you on the other. Over the long term, I think this behavior could count as a kind of psychological PUA.
Batman: I agree quite strongly. Supervisory PUA is a form of control over cognition and behavior. I previously saw an explanation on Zhihu that described it as using a series of psychological control methods to make students lose their sense of self and eventually obey their supervisor unquestioningly. A supervisor may undermine you psychologically, saying you are incapable and repeatedly conditioning you, until they control you from a position of psychological or institutional power.
If we think about it, PUA originally taught men how to approach women. Does its success mean that many women at the time lacked confidence or affection, or did not understand what they really liked: the material things offered by the other person, or the frequent so-called romance and surprises?
Working backward, if a supervisor subjects us to PUA, could that also reflect students’ lack of confidence or uncertainty about how to handle the supervisor–student relationship? Is it simply an employment relationship, or can the supervisor control everything we do? Students may not be clear about how to navigate that relationship.
[A brief summary: three major features of PUA are malicious intent, persistence over time, and behavior beyond reasonable boundaries.]
[Watch for PUA: have you begun blaming yourself frequently? Even though you work in the laboratory from early morning until late at night, do you question whether you are working hard enough or deserve to do research? Is everyone in the same laboratory feeling low?]
Does this count as PUA?
Question 02: My supervisor requires a paper before I can graduate, but I do not want to publish and only want to finish sooner. My request is rejected, and the supervisor makes me extend my studies. I experience sustained psychological pressure and frustration as a result. Is that PUA?
Tin Foil: I see this as a mismatch between your needs and your supervisor’s. Judging by the third indicator we discussed, I am unsure whether the demand exceeds what is considered reasonable, so it is difficult to determine whether it is PUA. A requirement to publish one paper may simply be a graduation requirement rather than something motivated by malice.
Here is an analogy that may not be entirely appropriate. Suppose you are an undergraduate taking a course, and the instructor requires a score above sixty to receive credit. You decide that you do not need to score above sixty. If you fail to meet the requirement, the instructor fails you and you cannot receive credit. That clearly cannot be called PUA.
Bubble Dragon: I do not think it is PUA. If an undergraduate fails too many courses, cannot graduate, and consequently experiences severe stress or even depression, would you call that PUA by the university? I would not. If a rule is widely accepted and the supervisor is not deliberately making things difficult within that rule, then it is not PUA.
If the supervisor insists that the paper must be completed, that can be addressed through communication. I do not agree that we should suspect PUA whenever a student develops psychological symptoms. That assumption deserves questioning.
Grape-Skin Eater: using the word PUA is a serious matter. To me, it involves a supervisor suppressing you over time in an unreasonable or even deliberate way, causing psychological problems. But we also often face difficult situations at work—for example, a boss assigning many tasks to be completed in a very short time. That may be unreasonable, but it is also very common. If we categorize everything as PUA, the term is being overused.
Question 03: Is there an accepted standard for identifying PUA?
Tin Foil: is there a reasonable yardstick for PUA’s scope and criteria? I once knew an associate professor in China whose students felt frustrated because their experiments were not working. At a time when many news stories discussed student depression, he became very worried that they might take extreme actions, so he devoted considerable personal time to helping them do experiments. I think a professor doing students’ experiments personally for fear of depression represents the opposite extreme. We do not need to define PUA too broadly, because supervisors still need to set reasonable expectations for students, whether for graduation or academic work. Agreeing on rules in advance is therefore necessary: for example, when you join the group, we should discuss what you must achieve to graduate, our expectations for the project, how far you need to take it, and whether a publication is necessary. If we agree on these conditions before collaborating, both sides can help avoid extreme situations.
Question 04: My supervisor often sends confusing, overly intimate messages and asks me to buy groceries or look after their children. Is that PUA?
Tin Foil: I remember that the news story already involved some concerns about sexual harassment. The supervisor made demands beyond a supervisor–student relationship. I think the motive might not have been malicious, but the behavior was persistent, frequent, and beyond reasonable boundaries. Rather than PUA, it may be closer to sexual harassment: perhaps the supervisor wanted to develop an ambiguous romantic relationship with the student.
Bubble Dragon: I think the boundaries were never clearly established. The lack of a clear boundary between supervisor and student led to the later incident. From the first suggestive message or unreasonable request, the student should establish boundaries instead of complying out of fear of authority.
[Be cautious about overusing PUA: most supervisory demands are reasonable and well-intentioned. We should avoid being controlled by emotion, while also developing resilience during the demanding life of research!]
[PhDSciNet preview: next time, we will discuss sexual harassment in research workplaces. Stay tuned!]
Are women more vulnerable to PUA?
Question 05: Compared with men, are women more easily manipulated through these routines?
Grape-Skin Eater: I think that if a supervisor has already chosen to engage in PUA, they will basically subject the entire laboratory to it, without distinguishing by gender.
In the group with particularly severe PUA that I mentioned earlier, the person who resisted most strongly was actually a woman. She was very brave and reported the situation directly to the department, which is why so many people later learned about it. Other members of the group only then realized that their supervisor’s behavior was wrong. This happened many years ago, before people could discuss such questions as openly as they do now.
Tin Foil: so she was very alert to the fact that something was wrong.
Grape-Skin Eater: yes, and she decisively moved to another group.
Bubble Dragon: I do not think there is much difference between men and women. If someone wants to engage in PUA, they may see everyone as a subject under their rule and spare nobody; they simply adapt their behavior to each person. With someone who has clearer boundaries and a firmer attitude, they may restrain themselves somewhat. Someone more vulnerable, introverted, less skilled at communication, or more sensitive may be easier to manipulate. I feel it has less to do with gender than with personality, which determines the form that person’s PUA takes.
Batman: my impression is that women are indeed more vulnerable to PUA. For example, in the Me Too movement, were the reported cases not men manipulating women? Or perhaps regrettable incidents involving women are simply more likely to attract public attention?
The main reason may be that supervisors have a firm grip on students’ most vulnerable point, leaving us somewhat afraid of them. If my supervisor subjected me to PUA, I would first feel intense fear and would not immediately speak up. I might avoid the situation as much as possible because I feared not graduating. Those worries and fears would keep me from coming forward. Of course, I greatly admire the woman described earlier; I think she was very brave.
[A small reminder: respecting supervisors is important, but learning to say no courageously to unreasonable demands and defend your boundaries is an important life lesson too.]
If you are experiencing intense psychological strain caused by a supervisor’s sustained malicious suppression, try not to keep doubting and blaming yourself. Speak with a trusted friend, elder, or professional counselor about your experiences and sense of helplessness. They may tell you that what you face could be PUA and that it is not your fault: stopping self-blame is the first step toward escaping psychological control.
May research always remain something we cherish!
PhD participants: Grape-Skin Eater, Tin Foil, Bubble Dragon, Batman
Editor: Honey Peach Oolong
Interview: Tin Foil
Audio recording: Huangyuan Wandou (黄圆豌豆)
Sources and editorial history
Restored from a complete historical article exported from the PhDSciNet Official Account.
