●Preface xiv
1 Psychology Is Alive and Well
(and Doing Fine Among the Sciences)1
The Freud Problem 1
The Diversity of Modern Psychology 3
Implications of Diversity 4
Unity in Science 4
What, Then, Is Science 6
Systematic Empiricism 7
Publicly Verifiable Knowledge:Replication and Peer Review 8
Empirically Solvable Problems:Scientists' Search for Testable Theories 10
Psychology and Folk Wisdom:The Problem with “Common Sense” 11
Psychology as a Young Science 15
Summary 16
2 Falsifiability:How to Foil Little
Green Men in the Head 17
Theories and the Falsifiability Criterion 18
The Theory of Knocking Rhythms 19
Freud and Falsifiability 20
The Little Green Men 22
Not All Confirmations Are Equal 23
Falsifiability and Folk Wisdom 24
The Freedom to Admit a Mistake 25
Thoughts Are Cheap 27
Errors in Science:Getting Closer to the Truth 28
Summary 30
3 Operationism and Essentialism:
“But, Doctor, What Does It Really Mean ” 31
Why Scientists Are Not Essentialists 31
Essentialists Like to Argue About the Meaning of Words 32
Operationists Link Concepts to Observable Events 32
Reliability and Validity 34
Direct and Indirect Operational Definitions 37
Scientific Concepts Evolve 38
Operational Definitions in Psychology 40
Operationism as a Humanizing Force 42
Essentialist Questions and the Misunderstanding of Psychology 43
Summary 44
4 Testimonials and Case Study Evidence:
Placebo Effects and the Amazing Randi 45
The Place of the Case Study 47
Why Testimonials Are Worthless:Placebo Effects 48
The “Vividness” Problem 51
The Overwhelming Impact of the Single Case 53
Why Vivid Anecdotes and Testimonials Are So Potent 54
The Amazing Randi:Fighting Fire with Fire 55
Testimonials Open the Door to Pseudoscience 57
Summary 62
5 Correlation and Causation:Birth
Control by the Toaster Method 63
The Third-Variable Problem 64
Why Goldberger's Evidence Was Better 65
The Directionality Problem 68
Selection Bias 70
Summary 72
6 Getting Things Under Control:
The Case of Clever Hans 74
Snow and Cholera 75
Comparison, Control, and Manipulation 76
Random Assignment in Conjunction with
Manipulation Defines the True Experiment 77
The Importance of Control Groups 79
The Case of Clever Hans, the Wonder Horse 83
Clever Hans in the 1990s and in the Present Day 85
Prying Variables Apart:Spe Conditions 88
Intuitive Physics 90
Intuitive Psychology 91
Summary 93
7 “But It's Not Real Life!”:
The “Artifiity” Criticism and Psychology 94
Why Natural Isn't Always Necessary 94
The Random Sample Versus Random Assignment Confusion 96
Theory-Driven Research Versus Direct Applications 97
Applications of Psychological Theory 99
The “College Sophomore” Problem 101
The Real-Life and College Sophomore Problems in Perspective 104
Summary 105
8 Avoiding the Einstein Syndrome:
The Importance of Converging Evidence 106
The Connectivity Principle 107
A Consumer's Rule:Beware of Violations of Connectivity 108
The “Great-Leap” Model Versus the Gradual-Synthesis Model 109
Converging Evidence:Progress Despite Flaws 110
Types of Converging Evidence 113
Scientific Consensus 118
Methods and the Convergence Principle 118
The Progression to More Powerful Methods 119
A Counsel Against Despair 122
Summary 124
9 The Misguided Search for the “Magic Bullet”:
The Issue of Multiple Causation 125
The Concept of Interaction 126
The Temptation of the Single-Cause Explanation 128
Summary 131
10 The Achilles' Heel of Human
Cognition:Probabilistic Reasoning 132
“Person-Who” Statistics 135
Probabilistic Reasoning and the Misunderstanding of Psychology 136
Psychological Research on Probabilistic Reasoning 138
Insufficient Use of Probabilistic Information 139
Failure to Use Sample-Size Information 140
The Gambler's Fallacy 142
A Further Word About Statistics and Probability 144
Summary 146
11 The Role of Chance in Psychology 147
The Tendency to Try to Explain Chance Events 147
Explaining Chance:Illusory Correlation and the Illusion of Control 150
Chance and Psychology 151
Coincidence 151
Personal Coincidences 153
Accepting Error in Order to Reduce Error:Clinical Versus Actuarial Prediction 155
Summary 160
12 The Rodney Dangerfield of the Sciences 162
Psychology's Image Problem 163
Psychology and Parapsychology 163
The Self-Help Literature 165
Recipe Knowledge 166
Psychology and Other Disciplines 167
Our Own Worst Enemies 168
Our Own Worst Enemies, Part II:Psychology
Has Become an Ideological Monoculture 172
Isn't Everyone a Psychologist Implicit Theories of Behavior 178
The Source of Resistance to Scientific Psychology 179
The Final Word 182
References 183
Name Index 210
Subject Index 217