Exam 1: Science and Pseudoscience in Psychology

Recall from your text that researchers gave students false feedback about their abilities to distinguish between false and real suicide notes. At the conclusion of the study, the researchers informed the students that their feedback was in no way related to their actual performance. However, on a subsequent task where the students had to estimate their performance on a similar task, they used this false feedback to guide their estimates. This is an example of

A key issue in science is providing methods to help people distinguish between accurate, helpful claims and those that are inaccurate and unhelpful. This problem is exacerbated by which of the following sins of pseudoscience?

Despite the fact that scientific research has found no support or basis for the belief of "the hot hand" in baseball, basketball, or golf, the idea still persists among athletes, sports commentators, and fans. This is a classic example of

A science is defined by

Which of the following types of psychologist are most likely to work with people experiencing temporary, self-contained problems such as occupational stressors?

What psychological school of thought was most concerned with the influence of the general principles of learning on an organism's or a person's actions?

According to your textbook chapter, the primary reason why pseudoscience is so attractive to so many people is because of our brains' tendency to

Suppose you were one of the early graduate students in the newly-developed field of psychology. Your mentor is interested in discovering the answers to questions like, "Why is the ability to forget helpful?" "How do emotions assist us in social situations?" and "Why is self-presentation a useful technique for gaining social rewards?" Your mentor's approach is most consistent with the ________ perspective.

Tatiana is a manager of a large grocery store, and she believes that, if left to their own devices, her high school and university-age workers would do nothing but text and talk on their mobile phones. She constantly watches and warns these employees about being written up or fired for repeated violations of the no mobile-phone-use policy. However, she often ignores the same behaviour by her older adult employees. It would be wise to warn her of the dangers of ________.

In opening her new private preschool, Mrs Alvarez plans to only accept students who come from upper-middle income families, because she read that students who perform well come from higher socioeconomic families. Mrs Alvarez is making the ________ error of critical thinking.

Explain how the principles of critical thinking can assist a person in making more informed and, hopefully, more accurate decisions in one's daily life. Do you think these principles are actually necessary, or are they just a means of being too critical of research?

When a psychologist mentions the term scientific theory, he or she is referring to something that

Modern psychology is best considered to be a

According to terror management theory, what is a mechanism used by many people around the world to deal with the fear caused by our awareness of our own mortality?

A claim must be testable in order to be useful. However, we also need this claim to

A group of scientists is attempting to verify recent data published on the chemical composition of tears and the presence of Alzheimer's disease. This illustrates the critical-thinking principle of

________ refers to a claim or statement that superficially appears to be scientific but is not.

According to the authors, one of the bottom lines of scientific thinking is

The major difference between pseudoscience and science is that

In the natural world, there often are many different factors associated with the occurrence of a particular outcome. Therefore, it is important that we as critical thinkers ________ whenever possible.