Déformation professionnelle


Déformation professionnelle, also called nerdview, is a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one's own profession or special expertise, rather than from a broader or humane perspective. It is often translated as "professional deformation", though French can also be translated as "distortion". The implication is that professional training, and its related socialization, often result in a distortion of the way one views the world. Nobel laureate Alexis Carrel observed, "Every specialist, owing to a well-known professional bias, believes that he understands the entire human being, while in reality he only grasps a tiny part of him."
As a term in psychology, it was likely coined by the Belgian sociologist, or Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin.