How to Think Straight About Psychology

by Stanovich, Keith E.

• ISBN13: 9780321047137
• ISBN10: 0321047133
• Edition: 6th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

"This popular book on applying critical thinking techniques to standard concepts in psychology and teaches how to recognize and critically appraise pseudoscience." In particular, this book provides tips on evaluating claims that arise in discussions of psychology in the media and self-help literature. By boldly examining common misconceptions in psychology, this book helps readers become more critical and discriminating consumers of psychological information." For anyone interested in psychology.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Psychology Is Alive and Well (and Doing Fine Among the Sciences)	1	(22)
The Freud Problem	1	(1)
The Diversity of Modern Psychology	2	(4)
Implications of Diversity	3	(3)
Unity in Science	6	(2)
What, Then, Is Science?	8	(9)
Systematic Empiricism	9	(1)
Publicly Verifiable Knowledge: Replication and Peer Review	10	(5)
Empirically Solvable Problems: Scientists' Search for Testable Theories	15	(2)
Psychology and Folk Wisdom: The Problem With ``Common Sense''	17	(3)
Psychology As A Young Science	20	(1)
Summary	21	(2)
Falsifiability: How to Foil Little Green Men in the Head	23	(16)
Theories and The Falsifiability Criterion	24	(12)
The Theory of Knocking Rhythms	25	(1)
Freud and Falsifiability	26	(2)
The Little Green Men	28	(2)
Not All Confirmations Are Equal	30	(1)
Falsifiability and Folk Wisdom	30	(1)
The Freedom to Admit a Mistake	31	(3)
Thoughts Are Cheap	34	(2)
Errors in Science: Getting Closer to the Truth	36	(2)
Summary	38	(1)
Operationism and Essentialism: ``But, Doctor, What Does It Really Mean?''	39	(16)
Why Scientists Are Not Essentialists	39	(5)
Essentialists Like to Argue About the Meaning of Words	40	(1)
Operationists Link Concepts to Observable Events	41	(2)
Scientific Concepts Evolve	43	(1)
Operational Definitions In Psychology	44	(10)
Operationism as a Humanizing Force	46	(2)
Essentialist Questions and the Misunderstanding of Psychology	48	(2)
Operationism and the Phrasing of Psychological Questions	50	(4)
Summary	54	(1)
Testimonials and Case Study Evidence: Placebo Effects and the Amazing Randi	55	(20)
Stages of Scientific Investigation	56	(2)
Why Testimonials Are Worthless: Placebo Effects	58	(3)
The ``Vividness'' Problem	61	(9)
The Overwhelming Impact of the Single Case	65	(2)
What to Do About the Vividness Problem	67	(2)
The Amazing Randi: Fighting Fire with Fire	69	(1)
Testimonials Open The Door To Pseudoscience	70	(4)
Summary	74	(1)
Correlation and Causation: Birth Control by the Toaster Method	75	(12)
Pearson and Tuberculosis	76	(1)
The Third-Variable Problem: Goldberger and Pellagra	77	(4)
Why Goldberger's Evidence Was Better	78	(3)
The Directionality Problem	81	(1)
Selection Bias	82	(4)
Summary	86	(1)
Getting Things Under Control: The Case of Clever Hans	87	(16)
Snow and Cholera	88	(1)
Comparison, Control, And Manipulation	89	(13)
The Case of Clever Hans, the Wonder Horse	92	(2)
Clever Hans in the 1990s: An Unfolding Tragedy	94	(3)
Prying Variables Apart: Special Conditions	97	(2)
Intuitive Physics	99	(1)
Intuitive Psychology	100	(2)
Summary	102	(1)
``But It's Not Real Life!'': The ``Artificiality'' criticism and psychology	103	(18)
Why Natural Isn't Always Necessary	103	(9)
The ``Random-Sample'' Confusion	105	(1)
Theory-Driven Research Versus Direct Applications	105	(4)
Two Examples: Night Vision and Language Development	109	(3)
Applications of Psychological Theory	112	(7)
The ``College Sophomore'' Problem	115	(4)
The Real-Life and College Sophomore Problems in Perspective	119	(1)
Summary	119	(2)
Avoiding the Einstein Syndrome: The Importance of Converging Evidence	121	(26)
The Connectivity Principle	122	(5)
A Consumer's Rule: Beware of Violations of Connectivity	123	(2)
The ``Great-Leap'' Model and the Gradual-Synthesis Model	125	(2)
Psychology as a Gradual-Synthesis Science	127	(1)
Converging Evidence	127	(11)
Progress Despite Flaws	128	(1)
Theory Evaluation	128	(2)
Converging Evidence in Psychology	130	(1)
Dyslexia: An Example of Convergence	131	(4)
Television Violence and Aggression: Convergence Again	135	(3)
Scientific Consensus	138	(6)
Methods and the Convergence Principle	140	(1)
The Progression to More Powerful Methods	141	(3)
A Counsel Against Despair	144	(2)
Summary	146	(1)
The Misguided Search for the ``Magic Bullet'': The Issue of Multiple Causation	147	(8)
Summary	154	(1)
The Achilles' Heel of Human Cognition: Probabilistic Reasoning	155	(17)
``Person-Who'' Statistics	156	(2)
Probabilistic Reasoning and The Misunderstanding Of Psychology	158	(1)
Psychological Research on Probabilistic Reasoning	159	(12)
Insufficient Use of Probabilistic Information	160	(2)
Inverting Conditional Probabilities	162	(3)
Failure to Use Sample Size Information	165	(1)
The Gambler's Fallacy	166	(3)
A Further Word About Statistics and Probability	169	(2)
Summary	171	(1)
The Role of Chance in Psychology	172	(22)
The Tendency to Try to Explain Chance Events	172	(6)
Explaining Chance: Illusory Correlation and the Illusion of Control	176	(2)
Chance and Psychology	178	(6)
Coincidence	179	(3)
Personal Coincidences	182	(2)
Accepting Error in Order to Reduce Error: Clinical Versus Actuarial Prediction	184	(8)
Summary	192	(2)
The Rodney Dangerfield of the Sciences	194	(30)
Psychology's Image Problem	195	(7)
Psychology and Parapsychology	196	(2)
The Self-Help Literature	198	(2)
Recipe Knowledge	200	(2)
Psychology And The Media	202	(3)
Psychology and Other Disciplines	205	(2)
Our Own Worst Enemies	207	(5)
Isn't Everyone a Psychologist? Implicit Theories of Behavior	212	(5)
Evaluating Our Implicit Theories: Psychology as a Meme Tester	214	(3)
The Source of Resistance to Scientific Psychology	217	(5)
Conflict of Interest	218	(3)
Moral and Philosophical Objections to Psychology	221	(1)
The Final Word	222	(2)
References	224	(25)
Index	249