Chapter 7 “But it’s not real life!” Artificiality Criticism and Psychology

Thinking Straight about Psychology Chapter 7: “But it’s not real life!” Artificiality Criticism and Psychology Scientists deliberately set up conditions that aren’t like naturally occurring ones because it allows them to have control over extraneous variable. You can’t get that kind of control in the real world. The Random Sample Confusion: People tend to think that getting a random sample is a necessary condition for experimentation. In realty, psychological studies rarely use random samples. They use convenience samples of college students. Other scientists (chemists, biologists) don’t use random samples, either. Lab rats are not a random sample of rats. Random samples are important for survey research but not so much in psychological experimentation. Why? It goes back to the difference between basic and applied research. Basic research is lab research (concentrating on internal validity) that focuses primarily on theory testing. The goal of applied research is external validity—being able to generalize the results to the real world. Example: Election polling research—the goal is to predict a specific behavior in a very specific setting. “Where the nature of the prediction is direct, questions of the randomness of the sample and the representativeness of the conditions are important because the findings of the study are going to be applied directly” (Stanovich, p. 93). Most psychological research is not applied. The goal of most research is from “general to specific” (from a theory to a research situation). Most theory-driven research seeks to test theories of psychological processes rather than generalize the findings to a particular real-world situation. The advantage of applied research is that it can be put to use immediately “in the real world.” Basic research, though, gives us a general, accurate, and practical theory that we can use to eventually solve real world problems (e.g., bystander effect, dissonance). The scientists probably never intended to solve a real world problem with their research, but the theory proved useful enough to be able to do so. Many real-world problems have been solved “accidentally” through basic research (discovery of penicillin, x-rays, drugs for schizophrenia, the finding that the neuroanatomy of the sea slug is similar to the neural wiring of humans). We can’t be so short-sighted as a society that we undervalue the purpose of basic research and want only applied research to be done (“pen in the mouth” study leading to the facial feedback hypothesis). Example of basic research that had many practical applications: classical and operant conditioning. Learning theory has been applied to many practical problems. Cognitive psychology has also had a lot of success with generalizabilty, especially in intersecting with the legal situations (limits of memory, eyewitness testimony, false memories) and in education (teaching of reading, etc.). Admittedly, though, some psychological studies have had problems with generalizability. College sophomore problem—refers to the fact (the problem) that college sophomores are usually the subjects in psych studies. Do the results generalize beyond this group?  This problem doesn’t invalidate the study’s results…it simply calls for more studies to replicate it in other populations. If it fails to replicate, then it means that the theories developed from college sophomore data are not necessarily wrong…just incomplete.  Some areas of psychology don’t have this problem because the area of research is so basic (e.g., studies of visual processing) that subject demographics do not matter.  Replication of findings ensures a large degree of generality across geographic and SES factors. College sophomores 50 years ago used to be a really elite group, but they’re much more diverse now.  Social psychology is the area with the biggest issue regarding the sophomore problem, but most of the studies have generalized regardless. 10 Thinking Straight about Psychology Pseudoscience Pseudoscience: a set of claims that seems scientific but is not Apophenia: perceiving meaningful connections between random phenomena Confirmation bias: tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypotheses and ignore evidence that contradicts it Belief perseverance: sticking to our beliefs, no matter what (even with contradictory evidence) PSI: a broad term that indicates the “anomalous processes of information or energy transfer that are currently unexplained in terms of unknown physical or biological mechanisms” (Bem, 2011, p. 407). It incorporates the following: 1) Telepathy: transfer of information from one person to another by no known channels of communication (“reading minds”) 2) Clairvoyance –aka “remote viewing”—apparent perceptions of objects or events that are occurring out of sight (presently occurring, not in the future) 3) Precognition—conscious cognitive awareness of an event in the future (differs from clairvoyance because this one is predicting future events, not something that is currently happening). 4) Premonition—an emotional apprehension of an event in the future (having a sense of dread that something is about to happen to a loved one) 5) Telekinesis/psychokinesis—being able to move objects with the mind. Most psychologists are very skeptical of Psi. Case of Uri Geller and James Randi. Uri Geller was born in Israel and is an internationally known “psychic” whoclaims to receive visions and messages from (perhaps) extraterrestrials. His biggest claim to fame is to be able to bendspoons and keys with his mind. Studies of ESP Regarding parapsychology, people tend to think that it’s either a viable topic in psychology or is a “new” discipline that hasn’t been adequately studied yet. It’s actually been studied for 110 years, and there still doesn’t exist a single example of an ESP phenomena that is replicable under controlled conditions. Over 50% of Americans believe in ESP of some kind…when a society falls away from traditional religion and becomes more materialist, they tend to try to replace the void that religion once filled with parapsychology. Studies of ESP have been abandoned by psychologists for one reason: they haven’t panned out, and more competitive topics have taken its place. Bem (2011) published a very controversial paper in JPSP presenting data from 5 studies purporting to show evidence of ESP, but the results have been criticized on statistical and methodological grounds. **Overall, scientific support for parapsychology has been weak over the last century. Case Studies and Testimonials [Chapter 4] Case studies have been helpful and have played a prominent role in opening up areas of study (Freud, Piaget), but when we move from the early stages of scientific investigation to the more mature testing stage of the theory, the situation changes. Case studies and testimonials cannot be used to confirm or disconfirm evidence in a test of a theory because they are isolated events and lack the ability to rule out alternative explanations. Consider placebo effects, the tendency for people to report that any treatment has helped them, regardless of whether it has a real therapeutic element. People can actually get addicted to substances that have no medicinal properties at all. Look at the lion, the scarecrow, and the tin man on Wizard of Oz. 11 Thinking Straight about Psychology It’s been said (Postman, 1988) that prior to this century where scientific testing was widely available that the history of medicine has been simply the history of the placebo effect. Example: Greenwald’s studies on self-esteem vs. memory tapes The Vividness Problem One factor that strongly affects accessibility of information is the vividness of that information. There is nothing more vivid or compelling than sincere personal testimonies, which often overshadow more reliable information. (Vivid cases of kids who got autism after having just gotten a vaccine.) We find it very hard to look beyond personal experience. Example from 2014/2015: Police violence toward minorities. Summer of 2014: kids left in hot cars. Terrorist attacks since 9/11. Abducted children. The media pounces on vivid cases and exploits public opinion that way. No one really cared about AIDS until Rock Hudson died of it and made it more personal and vivid. John Paulus wrote a book in 1998 about innumerancy—the inability to deal comfortably with the fundamental notions of number and chance. He said that our tendency to be innumerate is tied up with overreliance on vivid examples and testimonial evidence. “Innumerate people characteristically have a strong tendency to personalize—to be misled by their own experience, or by the media’s focus on individuals and drama.” **The potency of testimonials and anecdotes threatens to undermine the usefulness of any knowledge generated by any of the behavioral science. Many of our social and political attitudes are based on 1 or 2 particularly vivid examples and are often maintained in the face of more reliable statistical data that should modify our views. Reagan was especially good at making speeches peppered with particularly vivid, memorable anecdotes. (“welfare queens”). Then came Obama—“Joe on Main Street vs. Wall Street.” Protecting Ourselves Do some research about the claims behind testimonials that seem too good to be true. They almost certainly are without merit. Find out if they have been tested in real, peer-reviewed journals. Who are the authors, and where did they get their degrees? Testimonials open the door to pseudoscience, which are big industries (astrology, mediums, self-help tapes, graphology, weird alternative methods from some naturopaths—e.g., lying on a bed of amethysts--even aromatherapy has no scientific merit). Guidelines published by the Arthritis Foundation and cited by the Committee on Aging for spotting unscrupulous promoters: 1) 2) 3) 4) He may offer a “special” or “secret” formula for “curing” arthritis. He advertises. He uses “case histories” and testimonials from satisfied “patients.” He may promise (or imply) a quick or easy cure. He may claim to know the cause of arthritis and talk about “cleansing” your body of “poisons” and “pepping up” your health. He may say surgery, X-rays, and drugs prescribed by a physician are unnecessary. 5) He may accuse the “medical establishment” of deliberately thwarting progress, or of persecuting him…but he doesn’t allow his method to be tested in tried and proven ways (U.S. Congress, 1984, p. 12). 12