Keith Stanovich - How to Think Straight About Psychology

 broken windows theory, 133

 causes of, 148

Depression, 46, 146, 149

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental

Disorders, 46

Directionality problem, 78–79

Earthquake prediction, 153

Economic problems, 148–149

Emotional intelligence, 202

Empiricism, systematic, 9–10

ESP (extrasensory perception), 27–28, 64–65, 186–188

See also Parapsychology

Essentialism, 37–39, 49–51

Evolution, 23

Evolutionary psychology, 5

Experiment

 control, 87–90

 manipulation, 87–90

 special conditions, 100–102, 107–108, 237, 238

Facilitated communication, 97–100

Falsifiability, 23–28

Field experiment, 93–94, 132–133, 136–137

Fluoridation, 66

Folk wisdom, 13–17, 29, 103–104, 203

Football strategy, 104–105

Freud problem, 1–2, 24–26, 185–186

Gambler’s fallacy, 161–163

Gambling, 182

Generalizability, 115–117

Global warming

 converging evidence and, 135–136

 Graphology, 66

Happiness, 79

 children and, 15

Heart attack, 138–139, 155, 178

Heat hypothesis, and violence, 77

Hormone replacement therapy, 82

Hypothesis, 22–23

Illusion of control, 170–172

Illusory correlation, 170–172

Implicit theories, 13–14

Inequality of wealth, 148–149

Intelligence, 43–44

 tests, 47, 90

Interaction of variables, 144–147

International aid organizations, 93–94

Internet, 189

 and experimentation, 119

iPod shuffle, 163

Iraq War, 63

Just-world hypothesis, 171

Knowledge, publicly verifiable, 10–12

Learning disabilities, 149–150

Life, definition of, 38–39

Lotteries, 174

Mammography, 140–141

Measurement, 40–41

Medical quackery, 67–69

Meta-analysis, 141–142

Moral behavior, 146

Multiple causation, 143–147

Multiple choice questions

 changing answers, 16

Multiple regression, 76

National Football League passer rating, 42

National Science Foundation, 2

Night vision, 113–114

Nobel Prize

 won by a psychologist, 2, 192–193

Objectivity, 29–32

Oddmatches, 173–176

Open-mindedness, 29–32

Operational definitions, 39–45

 humanizing force, 47–49

 in physics, 44–45

 in psychology, 45–47, 49–51

Opportunity costs, 66

Oprah Winfrey Show, 53–54, 68–69

Parapsychology, 27, 65, 186–188

Parsimony, 51, 96–97, 99

Path analysis, 76

Peer review, 10–11

Pellagra, 74–75

Personal experience, 102–105

“Person-who” statistics, 153–154

Physics, intuitive, 85, 103–105

Placebo effects, 56–59

Posttraumatic stress disorder, 196

Poverty, 74–76

Pre-existing bias problem, 45–47

Probabilistic reasoning, 151–165

 chance events, 151–153, 167–170, 172–175

 illusion of control, 171

 illusory correlation, 170–172

 randomness, 162–163, 168–169

 sample size, 159–160

 stock market, 168–170

Problems, empirically solvable, 12–13, 22

Projective tests, 171

Pseudoscience, 10, 12, 65–71, 196–197, 202–203

 Internet and, 189

Psychiatric disabilities in children, 145

Psychic scams, 64–67

Psychoanalytic theory, 25–26

Psycho-fact, 16

Psychological journals, 11

Psychology

 applications of, 115–117

 clinical, 193–199

 diversity of, 3–6

 as a hub science, 5

 intuitive, 103–104, 199–200

 unity in science, 6–8

 as a young science, 17–18

Psychotherapy

 effectiveness of, 58–59

Random assignment, 88–90, 109–110

Random sample, 108

Reading difficulties, 78–79, 126, 141

Reading education, 137, 141

Recipe knowledge, 190–192

Recovered memories, 116–117, 198

Reliability, 40–42

Replication, 10

Risk

 misperceptions of, 60–62

Rorschach test, 171

SAT test, 79–82

School achievement, 76–77, 79–80

School funding, 81–82

Science

 and conceptual change, 29, 43–45

 definition of, 8–9

 publicly verifiable knowledge, 10–12

 solvable problems, 12–13, 20

 systematic empiricism, 9–10

Scientific consensus, 134–136

Scientific investigation, stages of, 54–55

Scientific law, 33–34

Scientific values, 29–32

Selection bias, 79–83

Self-esteem, 15, 79

Self-help literature, 188–189

Single-cause explanation, 147–150

Smoking, 133–134, 153–155

Solvable problems, 12–13, 22, 36

Spontaneous remission, 58

Statistics, and psychology, 163–165

Stock market, 168–170

Suicide, 58

 anti-depressants and, 178

Teenage drivers, 146–147

Television

 violence, 131–132, 192

Testimonials, 56–59

 and pseudoscience, 65–71

Theory

 falsifiability, 22–23, 32–33

 testable, 36

Therapeutic touch, 101

Third-variable problem, 74–78

Tourette syndrome, 25–26, 59, 104

Traffic accidents, 100

“Truthiness,” 31

Type A behavior pattern, 43, 138–139, 141

Validity, 40–41

Vietnam War, 62

Vividness problem, 59–65

Wages, 148