Exam 1: Science and Pseudoscience in Psychology

Dr McDonald uses only the testimonies of parents and teachers as support for his treatment of ADHD. This illustrates which warning sign of pseudoscience?

Traps in thinking that can lead to mistaken conclusions are called

________ refers to a person's belief that he or she accurately and objectively sees the world as it is.

Initial reports in the media that listening to classical music made students more intelligent were followed by several failed attempts to reproduce the effects in the laboratories of other researchers. This is an example of the failure to

A group of teachers develops a maths curriculum to help students increase their scores on required tests in maths. The teachers find promising results with the students in their school, so they develop a plan to test the curriculum in all of the schools in their county. This plan shows that the teachers recognise the importance of

Demonstrate a time that you fell victim to at least one of the following logical fallacies (bandwagon fallacy, emotional reasoning fallacy, appeal to authority fallacy, or not me fallacy)and how it negatively affected the quality of your decision on that occasion.

________ refers to claims or statements that superficially appear to be scientific but are not.

Dr Richburg's botany class gathers specimens outside of the classroom for further study. Dr Richburg instructs his students to develop a scientific theory that helps explain the biodiversity of the plants. The resulting theory should

________ refers to the belief that we see the world precisely as it is.

In an experiment, a researcher attempts to create situations where support for one position indicates a lack of support for other positions. This is an application of the critical-thinking principle of ________.

If a person were to say that a scientific finding was replicated, he or she would be saying that the finding was

If a researcher's initial findings that a particular relationship or effect exists are not reliably demonstrated by other independent researchers, how are these initial findings thought of in the discipline of psychology?

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

Suppose Dr Honeydew is proposing a theory of attraction that posits that "opposites attract". Most of the available evidence suggests that "birds of a feather flock together" (i.e., similarities attract)rather than opposites attract. For his theory to be accepted by the scientific community, Dr Honeydew will need to

Recently, advertisements have been broadcast on the radio for some natural herbs that will calm you, increase your sense of well-being, and make you happier in a month's time. You are sure this is a pseudoscientific claim because it is

An explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world is what a scientist would call a(n)________.

________ refers to the idea that a study's results have been independently verified by others and are not simply the result of chance or coincidence.

Kari Ann is listening to the political debate on the television. She has strong feelings for one of the candidates and strong feelings against the other. If these feelings influence her evaluation of their performance because she is seeking supportive evidence for her beliefs, ________ is likely to occur.

According to the authors, one reason to be wary of programmes that promise to teach you speed-reading techniques in return for money is that such claims do not fit with the available data on information processing and memory. This is consistent with the pseudoscience error known as

________ is the approach of evaluating all claims with an open mind but insisting on persuasive evidence before accepting them.