Psychological Thinking - Psych 111
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Reframing Your Experience
Self-Reflection Questions to Enhance Learning:
What is the specific purpose of attending today's session?
How will the knowledge and skills I acquire today contribute to my overarching goals?
What are the potential negative outcomes (the 'worst things that could happen') if I ask a question or actively participate in class today?
Psychological Thinking (Psych 111)
Instructor: Dr. Sara Valencia Botto
The Aim of Education
Dr. Martin Luther King's Perspective: "To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction. The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically."
This quote emphasizes the crucial role of education in developing critical thinking skills to distinguish truth from falsehood and evidence from conjecture.
What is Psychology?
Definition: Psychology is defined as the scientific study of the mind and behavior.
Synonymity: Psychology is equivalent to Psychological Science.
What is Psychological Science?
Core Characteristics:
Critical: Involves both curiosity and a healthy degree of skepticism, questioning assumptions and seeking evidence.
Summative: Relies on considering multiple sources of evidence. Understanding of phenomena is not static but evolves and deepens over time as new evidence is gathered.
Scientific: Uses the rigorous scientific method to formulate and test hypotheses about the mind and behavior.
Why We Use the Scientific Method
Challenges in Studying Human Mind and Behavior: It is inherently difficult to study human mind and behavior in a truly objective manner due to inherent human biases.
Confirmation Bias: We all possess a "filter," a tendency to seek out, pay attention to, and believe only evidence that confirms our existing beliefs or expectations.
Overconfidence: We tend to be overly confident in our own knowledge and understanding, often underestimating the possibility of being wrong.
Psychology as a Field Today
Diverse Methods and Perspectives: Psychology employs a wide array of research methods and theoretical perspectives to understand the complexity of human experience.
Understanding Broad Patterns of Behavior:
Evolutionary Perspective: Examines how adaptive processes and natural selection have shaped universal aspects of human behavior.
Cultural Perspective: Investigates how different cultures influence behavior, thoughts, and emotions, highlighting variation across groups.
Understanding Thoughts and Feelings:
Cognitive Perspective: Focuses on mental processes such as perception, memory, problem-solving, and language.
Emotional Perspective: Explores the nature, expression, and regulation of emotions and their impact on behavior.
Understanding Roles of Body and Brain:
Biological–Neuroscience Perspective: Studies the physiological mechanisms underlying mental processes and behavior, including brain structures, neurotransmitters, and genetics.
Understanding Stable and Changing Patterns of Behavior:
Developmental Perspective: Traces how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors change across the lifespan, from infancy to old age.
Personality Perspective: Investigates enduring traits and characteristics that make individuals unique and predict their behavior across situations.
Social Perspective: Examines how individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.
Clinical Perspective: Focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of psychological disorders and mental health issues.
Example: How Do Humans Come to Understand Another's Perspective?
This complex question can be approached from multiple psychological perspectives:
Developmental Psychologists: Would study how this ability emerges and changes from childhood through adulthood.
Cognitive Psychologists: Would investigate the mental processes involved in perspective-taking, such as theory of mind and empathy.
Neuroscientists: Would explore the specific brain regions and neural circuits active during perspective-taking tasks.
Five Unifying Themes in Psychology
These themes integrate various psychological perspectives:
Nature (biology) and Nurture (environment) Interact to Predict Behavior: Behavior is a complex product of the interplay between genetic predispositions and environmental influences, rather than one or the other exclusively.
Psychology Seeks to Identify Universal Aspects of Behavior as well as Variation: While some psychological phenomena are common across all humans, psychology also recognizes and studies the diversity of human experience across individuals and cultures.
Behavior is Shaped by Conscious Understanding and by Unconscious Processes: Both deliberate, aware thoughts and automatic, unaware processes play significant roles in influencing our actions and decisions.
We Gain Insights by Understanding Both Normal Functioning and Dysfunctions: Studying typical psychological processes helps us understand abnormalities, and conversely, studying dysfunctions can shed light on the mechanisms of normal functioning.
Applying Psychology Can Change Our Lives in Positive Ways: Psychological knowledge and research findings have practical applications that can improve individual well-being, interpersonal relationships, and societal issues.
Psychological Science: Research and Evidence
Core Principle: Psychological scientists conduct research to answer questions by establishing empirical evidence.
Evidence: The available body of facts or information that indicates whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
Empirical: Based on astute observation and accurate measurement.
Key Point: The most reliable and robust evidence in psychological science is empirical.
What IS NOT Psychological Science?
Pseudoscience: A collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly thought to be based on valid science, lacking empirical evidence and scientific rigor.
Examples:
Homeopathy
Astrology
Any "Cosmopolitan quiz" predicting personality or future events.
Pop Psychology: Popular interpretations or applications of psychology that sometimes misrepresent or oversimplify actual psychological findings, often lacking nuance or empirical support.
The Peril of False Certainty
Mark Twain Quote: "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."
This highlights the danger of holding onto incorrect beliefs with absolute certainty.
Intellectual Humility
Definition: The recognition of one's intellectual limitations and the acknowledgment that personal beliefs, ideas, and knowledge could be wrong, incomplete, or subject to revision.
It is a crucial trait for critical thinking and learning.
How to Fight Disinformation (Inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson)
Awareness of Cognitive Biases: When evaluating information, be aware of common human tendencies that can lead us astray:
Overconfidence Effect: The tendency to be overly sure of what we know, often leading to dismissal of contradictory evidence.
Confirmation Bias: The tendency to seek out, pay attention to, and believe only evidence that supports what we already believe, while ignoring or downplaying contradictory evidence.
Moving Goalposts: Shifting the criteria for what constitutes sufficient evidence after new information is presented, to avoid changing one's belief.
Ask Critical Questions: To avoid being misled by disinformation, engage in active scrutiny:
What is the agenda or motive behind this source or author? (e.g., financial gain, personal bias, political agenda).
Do they cite any credible empirical evidence to support their claims?
What is the expertise and qualifications of the author on this topic?
Can I independently verify this information, and find it consistently reported in other credible, reputable sources?
Does the claim seem "too good to be true" or sensationalized? (Often an indicator of misinformation).
Example of Misinformation: "Food Babe" Post Analysis
Content: A social media post from "thefoodbabe" (Vani Hari) listing "Hazardous Chemicals That Are FDA-Approved" and questioning FDA trustworthiness.
Claims: Allegations that FDA-approved substances (e.g., artificial colors, sodium nitrite, potassium sorbate) are dangerous, linking them to allergies, hyperactivity, carcinogens, and heart disease.
Critique Using Critical Questions:
Motive/Agenda: The "Food Babe" brand often promotes an anti-additive, "clean eating" agenda, potentially driven by product endorsements or book sales.
Empirical Evidence: The post makes broad claims but does not cite specific, peer-reviewed empirical studies. General assertions like "linked to" or "strongly linked to" lack scientific precision and context.
Expertise: While Hari is a popular influencer, her scientific expertise in toxicology, food chemistry, or regulatory science is questionable.
Verification: Scientific consensus from major public health organizations (like the FDA, EFSA, WHO) generally refutes the idea that these substances, at approved levels, cause the widespread harm alleged in the post. Individual studies might exist but need to be evaluated in the context of the larger body of scientific literature.
"Too Good to Be True" / Sensationalism: The post uses alarmist language ("hazardous chemicals," "shocking") to evoke fear and mistrust, which is a common tactic in disinformation.
Conclusion: This example demonstrates how a lack of intellectual humility, coupled with confirmation bias from the audience, can allow unsubstantiated claims to gain traction, especially when critical thinking questions are not applied. It highlights the importance of relying on established scientific consensus and critically evaluating the source and evidence. The phrases "overconfidence effect" and "confirmation bias" are reiterated in the context of how individuals might react to such information, tending to believe what aligns with existing fears or prior beliefs. It also indirectly touches upon the "moving goalposts" concept if a critical reader were to continuously challenge the claims and the author kept shifting the basis of their argument. The lesson is to actively combat internal biases and external disinformation by asking rigorous critical questions.