Psychology A Framework for Everyday Thinking

by Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven J.; Namy, Laura L.; Woolf, Nancy J.

• ISBN13: 9780205650484
• ISBN10: 0205650481
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-06-21
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

Guiding students from understanding to application,Psychology: A Frameworkprovides an accessible and personalized framework upon which they can build their knowledge and use of the science of psychology. This brief edition text teaches students how to critically evaluate psychological claims that they experience in everyday life through the use of the six flags of scientific thinking. Students are then given the opportunity to apply their critical thinking skills to a variety of real world situations with the "What Do YOU Think?," "MythConceptions," and "Factoids" and "Fictoids" features. Students have ample opportunity to assess their knowledge of the chapter content. Each major section concludes with a Quiz that includes both true/false questions and a MyPsychLab resource with accompanying question. The end-of-chapter study guide ("Your Complete Review System") contains section summaries and comprehensive tests of the chapter content, visual program, and MyPsychLab resources, all of which is tied to the numbered learning objectives. It also contains a summary of the critical thinking skills introduced in the chapter and offers two critical-thinking essay questions for students to answer. Numbered learning objectives, which are called out in the narrative and in the end-of-chapter review material, help highlight key concepts and topics for students.

Author Biography

Scott O. Lilienfeld received his B.A. in Psychology from Cornell University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1990. He completed his clinical internship at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1986-1987. He was assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at SUNY Albany from 1990-1994, and now is Professor of Psychology at Emory University. He recently was appointed a Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science, and was the recipient of the 1998 David Shakow Award from Division 12 (Clinical Psychology) of the American Psychological Association for Early Career Contributions to Clinical Psychology. Dr. Lilienfeld is a past president of the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology within Division 12. He is the founder and editor of the Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, Associate Editor of Applied and Preventive Psychology, and a regular columnist for Scientific American Mind magazine.  He has authored or co-authored six books and over 200 journal articles and chapters. Dr. Lilienfeld has also been a participant in Emory University's "Great Teachers" lecturer series, as well as the Distinguished Speaker for the Psi Chi Honor Society at the American Psychological Association and Midwestern Psychological Association conventions.


Steven Jay Lynn received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan, and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Indiana University. He completed an NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship at Lafayette Clinic, Detroit Michigan in 1976, and is now Professor of Psychology at Binghamton University (SUNY), where he is the director of the Psychological Clinic. Dr. Lynn is a Fellow of numerous professional organizations, including the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society, and he was the recipient of the Chancellor's Award of the State University of New York for Scholarship and Creative Activities. Dr. Lynn has authored or edited 17 books, and authored more than 230 journal articles and chapters. Dr. Lynn has served as the editor of a book series for the American Psychological Association, and he has served on 11 editorial boards, including the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Dr. Lynn’s research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Ohio Department of Mental Health.

Laura L. Namy received her B. A. in Philosophy and Psychology from Indiana University in 1993 and her doctorate in Cognitive Psychology at Northwestern University in 1998. She is now Associate Professor of Psychology and Core Faculty in Linguistics at Emory University. Dr. Namy is the editor of the Journal of Cognition and Development and serves as the treasurer of the Cognitive Development Society.  At Emory, she is Director of the joint major in psychology and linguistics, Director of the Emory Child Study Center, and Associate Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture. Her research focuses on the origins and development of verbal and non-verbal symbol use in young children, sound symbolism in natural language, and the role of comparison in conceptual development.

Nancy J. Woolf received her B.S. in Psychobiology at UCLA in 1978 and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at UCLA School of Medicine in 1983. She is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at UCLA. Her specialization is behavioral neuroscience and her research spans the organization of acetylcholine systems, neural plasticity, memory, neural degeneration, Alzheimer’s disease, and consciousness. In 1990 she won the Colby Prize from the Sigma Kappa Foundation, awarded for her achievements in scientific research in Alzheimer’s disease. In 2002 she received the Academic Advancement Program Faculty Recognition Award. She also received a Distinguished Teaching Award from the Psychology Department at UCLA in 2008. Dr. Woolf is currently on the editorial boards of Science and Consciousness Review and Nanoneuroscience.

 

Table of Contents

Psychology: A Framework provides an accessible and personalized framework that students need to go from understanding to the application of the science of Psychology

This framework includes:The Six Flags of Scientific Thinking

Extraordinary Claims tells us that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

For Example: The claim that a monster, like Bigfoot, has been living in the American Northwest for decades without being discovered by researchers requires more rigorous evidence

Falsifiability

For a claim to be meaningful, it must in principle be falsifiable , that is, capable of being disproven

For Example: The claim that "all human beings have invisible souls" isn't necessarily wrong but it is unfalsifiable because no evidence could conceivably disprove it

Occam's Razor (Also called the "principle of parsimony")

If two explanations for a phenomenon are equally good, we should generally select the simpler one

For Example: If a person with poor vision spots a flying saucer during a Frisbee tournament on a foggy day, it's more likely that his UFO report is due to a simpler explanation--mistaking a frisbee for a UFO

Replicability

When evaluating a psychological claim, ask yourself whether the findings that support this claim have been replicated by independent investigators

For Example: If a researcher finds that people who practice meditation score 50 points higher on an IQ test than people who don't, but no one else can duplicate the finding, we should be skeptical of it

Ruling Out Rival Hypotheses

Whenever you evaluate a psychological claim, ask yourself whether alternative explanations for this claim have been excluded, or whether the claim could be explained in other ways

For Example: If an investigator finds that depressed people who receive a new medication improve more than equally depressed people who receive nothing, this difference may be due to the people who received the medication expected to improve

Correlation vs. Causation

A correlation between two things doesn't prove a causal connection between them

For Example: The finding that people eat more ice cream on days when many crimes are committed doesn't mean eating ice cream causes crime

What Do YOU Think? These boxed features, which appear in every section of the chapter, ask students to imagine themselves in a variety of real-world roles and scenarios and then use their critical thinking skills to form opinions, offer advice, or make policy decisions

By applying these skills to a diverse array of situations, students will see the importance of critical thinking in all aspects of life

MythConceptions BoxesEach chapter contains one "MythConceptions" box focusing in-depth on a widespread psychology misconception

In this way, students will come to recognize that their commonsense intuitions about the psychological world are not always correct, and that scientific methods are needed to separate accurate from inaccurate claims

Factoids and Fictoids"Factoids" present interesting and surprising facts, while "Fictoids" present widely held beliefs that are false or unsupported

In both cases, students will find their conceptions and misconceptions of psychology challenged and their perspectives of psychology broadened

These features also underscore a crucial point: Psychology can be fun!Your Complete Review SystemThis review system appears at the end of each chapter and provides students with a quick, effective, and intuitively organized, interactive visual review of the chapter

Organized by major sections and tied to the numbered learning objectives, each review includes a summary, quiz questions, visual activities, and 1-3 MyPsychLab questions related to online activities (vi

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