How to Think Straight About Psychology,9780321012463

How to Think Straight About Psychology

by
Edition: 5th
ISBN13: 9780321012463
ISBN10: 0321012461
Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 1997-08-01
Publisher(s): Prentice Hall
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Table of Contents

Notes to the Fifth Edition xiii(2)
Preface xv
CHAPTER 1 Psychology Is Alive and Well (and Doing Fine Among the Sciences)
1(21)
THE FREUD PROBLEM
1(2)
THE DIVERSITY OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY
3(3)
Implications of Diversity
3(3)
UNITY IN SCIENCE
6(2)
WHAT, THEN, IS SCIENCE?
8(8)
Systematic Empiricism
9(1)
Publicly Verifiable Knowledge: Replication and Peer Review
10(5)
Empirically Solvable Problems: Scientists' Search for Testable Theories
15(1)
PSYCHOLOGY AND FOLK WISDOM: THE PROBLEM WITH "COMMON SENSE"
16(3)
PSYCHOLOGY AS A YOUNG SCIENCE
19(2)
SUMMARY
21(1)
CHAPTER 2 Falsifiability: A Discourse on How to Foil Little Green Men in the Head
22(15)
THEORIES AND THE FALSIFIABILITY CRITERION
23(11)
The Theory of Knocking Rhythms
24(1)
Freud and Falsifiability
25(2)
The Little Green Men
27(2)
Not All Confirmations Are Equal
29(1)
Falsifiability and Folk Wisdom
29(1)
The Freedom to Admit a Mistake
30(2)
Thoughts Are Cheap
32(2)
ERRORS IN SCIENCE: GETTING CLOSER TO THE TRUTH
34(2)
SUMMARY
36(1)
CHAPTER 3 Operationism and Essentialism: "But, Doctor, What Does It Really Mean?"
37(16)
WHY SCIENTISTS ARE NOT ESSENTIALISTS
37(6)
Essentialists Like to Argue About the Meaning of Words
38(2)
Operationists Link Concepts to Observable Events
40(1)
Scientific Concepts Evolve
41(2)
OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS IN PSYCHOLOGY
43(8)
Operationism as a Humanizing Force
45(2)
Essentialist Questions and the Misunderstanding of Psychology
47(1)
Operationism and the Phrasing of Psychological Questions
48(3)
SUMMARY
51(2)
CHAPTER 4 Testimonials and Case Study Evidence: Placebo Effects and the Amazing Randi
53(20)
STAGES OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION
54(1)
WHY TESTIMONIALS ARE WORTHLESS: PLACEBO EFFECTS
55(4)
THE "VIVIDNESS" PROBLEM
59(8)
The Overwhelming Impact of the Single Case
62(2)
What to Do About the Vividness Problem
64(1)
The Amazing Randi: Fighting Fire with Fire
65(2)
TESTIMONIALS OPEN THE DOOR TO PSEUDOSCIENCE
67(4)
SUMMARY
71(2)
CHAPTER 5 Correlation and Causation: Birth Control by the Toaster Method
73(11)
PEARSON AND TUBERCULOSIS
74(1)
THE THIRD-VARIABLE PROBLEM: GOLDBERGER AND PELLAGRA
75(4)
Why Goldberger's Evidence Was Better
75(4)
THE DIRECTIONALITY PROBLEM
79(1)
SELECTION BIAS
80(3)
SUMMARY
83(1)
CHAPTER 6 Getting Things Under Control: The Case of Clever Hans
84(15)
SNOW AND CHOLERA
85(1)
COMPARISON, CONTROL, AND MANIPULATION
86(12)
The Case of Clever Hans, the Wonder Horse
89(1)
Clever Hans in the 1990s: An Unfolding Tragedy
90(3)
Prying Variables Apart: Special Conditions
93(2)
Intuitive Physics
95(2)
Intuitive Psychology
97(1)
SUMMARY
98(1)
CHAPTER 7 "But It's Not Real Life!": The "Artificiality" Criticism and Psychology
99(16)
The "Random-Sample" Confusion
101(1)
Theory-Driven Research Versus Direct Applications
101(4)
Two Examples: Night Vision and Language Development
105(2)
APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
107(7)
The "College Sophomore" Problem
110(3)
The Real-Life and College Sophomore Problems in Perspective
113(1)
SUMMARY
114(1)
CHAPTER 8 Avoiding the Einstein Syndrome: The Importance of Converging Evidence
115(24)
THE CONNECTIVITY PRINCIPLE
116(4)
A Consumer's Rule: Beware of Violations of Connectivity
117(1)
The "Great-Leap" Model and the Gradual-Synthesis Model
118(2)
Psychology as a Gradual-Synthesis Science
120(1)
CONVERGING EVIDENCE
120(10)
Progress Despite Flaws
121(1)
Theory Evaluation
121(1)
Converging Evidence in Psychology
122(1)
Dyslexia: An Example of Convergence
123(4)
Television Violence and Aggression: Convergence Again
127(3)
SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS
130(5)
Methods and the Convergence Principle
132(1)
The Progression to More Powerful Methods
133(2)
A COUNSEL AGAINST DESPAIR
135(3)
SUMMARY
138(1)
CHAPTER 9 The Misguided Search for the "Magic Bullet": The Issue of Multiple Causation
139(7)
SUMMARY
145(1)
CHAPTER 10 The Achilles' Heel of Human Cognition: Probabilistic Reasoning
146(16)
"PERSON-WHO" STATISTICS
147(2)
PROBABILISTIC REASONING AND THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF PSYCHOLOGY
149(1)
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH ON PROBABILISTIC REASONING
150(11)
Insufficient Use of Probabilistic Information
151(2)
Inverting Conditional Probabilities
153(2)
Failure to Use Sample Size Information
155(1)
The Gambler's Fallacy
156(3)
A Further Word About Statistics and Probability
159(2)
SUMMARY
161(1)
CHAPTER 11 The Role of Chance in Psychology
162(20)
THE TENDENCY TO TRY TO EXPLAIN CHANCE EVENTS
162(6)
Explaining Chance: Illusory Correlation and the Illusion of Control
166(2)
CHANCE AND PSYCHOLOGY
168(5)
Coincidence
168(3)
Personal Coincidences
171(2)
ACCEPTING ERROR IN ORDER TO REDUCE ERROR: CLINICAL VERSUS ACTUARIAL PREDICTION
173(8)
SUMMARY
181(1)
CHAPTER 12 The Rodney Dangerfield of the Sciences
182(27)
PSYCHOLOGY'S "IMAGE" PROBLEM
184(5)
Psychology and Parapsychology
184(2)
The Self-Help Literature
186(2)
Recipe Knowledge
188(1)
PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MEDIA
189(4)
PSYCHOLOGY AND OTHER DISCIPLINES
193(3)
Physicists and the Paranormal: Another Example
195(1)
OUR OWN WORST ENEMIES
196(4)
ISN'T EVERYONE A PSYCHOLOGIST? IMPLICIT THEORIES OF BEHAVIOR
200(2)
THE SOURCE OF RESISTANCE TO SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY
202(6)
Conflict of Interest
202(4)
Moral and Philosophical Objections to Psychology
206(2)
THE FINAL WORD
208(1)
References 209(20)
Index 229

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