基思斯坦诺维奇（Keith E. Stanovich），目前担任加拿大多伦多大学人类发展与应用心理学的国家首席教授，他的研究领域是推理和阅读的心理学机制。他于2010年获得格威尔美尔教育奖（Grawemeyer Award in Education）。他至今已发表了200多篇科学论文。在一项对于论文引用率的调查中，斯坦诺维奇位列引用率最高的50位发展心理学家之一，也是25位最高产的教育心理学家之一。他所撰写的《这才是心理学》（How to Think Straight about Psychology）一书被全球300多所心理学高等教育机构采用。
目錄：
Preface xi
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 6
What, Then, Is Science? 8
Systematic Empiricism 9
Publicly Verifiable Knowledge： Replication and Peer Review 10
Empirically Solvable Problems： Scientists Search for Testable Theories 12
Psychology and Folk Wisdom： The Problem with Common Sense 13
Psychology as a Young Science 17
Summary 18
2 Falsifiability： How to Foil Little Green Men in the Head 21
Theories and the Falsifiability Criterion 22
The Theory of Knocking Rhythms 23
Freud and Falsifiability 24
The Little Green Men 26
Not All Confirmations Are Equal 28
Falsifiability and Folk Wisdom 29
The Freedom to Admit a Mistake 29
Thoughts Are Cheap 32
Errors in Science： Getting Closer to the Truth 33
Summary 36
3 Operationism and Essentialism： But, Doctor,What Does It Really Mean? 37
Why Scientists Are Not Essentialists 37
Essentialists Like to Argue About the Meaning of Words 38
Operationists Link Concepts to Observable Events 39
Reliability and Validity 40
Direct and Indirect Operational Definitions 42
Scientific Concepts Evolve 43
Operational Definitions in Psychology 45
Operationism as a Humanizing Force 47
Essentialist Questions and the Misunderstanding of Psychology 49
Summary 51
4 Testimonials and Case Study Evidence： Placebo Effects and the Amazing Randi 53
The Place of the Case Study 54
Why Testimonials Are Worthless： Placebo Effects 56
The Vividness Problem 59
The Overwhelming Impact of the Single Case 62
The Amazing Randi： Fighting Fire with Fire 64
Testimonials Open the Door to Pseudoscience 65
Summary 71
5 Correlation and Causation： Birth Control
by the Toaster Method 73
The Third-Variable Problem： Goldberger and Pellagra 74
Why Goldbergers Evidence Was Better 75
The Directionality Problem 78
Selection Bias 79
Summary 83
6 Getting Things Under Control： The Case of Clever Hans 85
Snow and Cholera 86
Comparison, Control, and Manipulation 87
Random Assignment in Conjunction with Manipulation
Defines the True Experiment 88
The Importance of Control Groups 90
The Case of Clever Hans, the Wonder Horse 95
Clever Hans in the 1990s 97
Prying Variables Apart： Special Conditions 100
Intuitive Physics 102
Intuitive Psychology 103
Summary 106
7 But Its Not Real Life!： The Artificiality Criticism and Psychology 107
Why Natural Isnt Always Necessary 107
The Random Sample Confusion 108
The Random Assignment Versus Random Sample Distinction 109
Theory-Driven Research Versus Direct Applications 110
Applications of Psychological Theory 115
The College Sophomore Problem 117
The Real-Life and College Sophomore Problems in Perspective 120
Summary 121
8 Avoiding the Einstein Syndrome： The Importance of Converging Evidence 123
The Connectivity Principle 124
A Consumers Rule： Beware of Violations of Connectivity 125
The Great-Leap Model Versus the Gradual-Synthesis Model 126
Converging Evidence： Progress Despite Flaws 128
Converging Evidence in Psychology 130
Scientific Consensus 134
Methods and the Convergence Principle 136
The Progression to More Powerful Methods 137
A Counsel Against Despair 139
Summary 142
9 The Misguided Search for the Magic Bullet： The Issue of Multiple Causation 143
The Concept of Interaction 144
The Temptation of the Single-Cause Explanation 147
Summary 150
10 The Achilles Heel of Human Cognition：
Probabilistic Reasoning 151
Person-Who Statistics 153
Probabilistic Reasoning and the Misunderstanding
of Psychology 154
Psychological Research on Probabilistic Reasoning 156
Insufficient Use of Probabilistic Information 157
Failure to Use Sample-Size Information 159
The Gamblers Fallacy 161
A Further Word About Statistics and Probability 163
Summary 165
11 The Role of Chance in Psychology 167
The Tendency to Try to Explain Chance Events 167
Explaining Chance： Illusory Correlation and the Illusion of Control 170
Chance and Psychology 172
Coincidence 172
Personal Coincidences 175
Accepting Error in Order to Reduce Error： Clinical Versus Actuarial Prediction 176
Summary 183
12 The Rodney Dangerfield of the Sciences 185
Psychologys Image Problem 185
Psychology and Parapsychology 186
The Self-Help Literature 188
Recipe Knowledge 190
Psychology and Other Disciplines 192
Our Own Worst Enemies 193
Isnt Everyone a Psychologist? Implicit Theories of Behavior 199
The Source of Resistance to Scientific Psychology 200
The Final Word 205
References 207
Credits 229
Name Index 230
Subject Index 237
內容試閱：
Preface
New to the Tenth Edition
The tenth edition of How to Think Straight About Psychology has no major structural revisions because a chapter reorganization occurred in a previous edition. The content and order of the chapters remain the same. At the request of reviewers and users, this edition remains at the same length as the ninth edition. Readers and users have not wanted the book to lengthen and, indeed, it has not. I have continued to update and revise the examples that are used in the book while keeping those that are reader favorites.
Some dated examples have been replaced with more contemporary studies and issues. I have made a major effort to use contemporary citations that are relevant to the various concepts and experimental effects that are mentioned. A large number of new citations appear in this edition 172 new citations, to be exact!, so that the reader continues to have up-to-date references on all of the examples and concepts.
The goal of the book remains what it always wasto present a short introduction to the critical thinking skills that will help the student to better understand the subject matter of psychology. During the past decade and a half there has been an increased emphasis on the teaching of critical thinking in universities Abrami et al., 2008; Sternberg, Roediger, & Halpern, 2006. Indeed, some state university systems have instituted curricular changes mandating an emphasis on critical thinking skills. At the same time, however, other educational scholars were arguing that critical thinking skills should not be isolated from specific factual content. How to Think Straight About Psychology combines these two trends. It is designed to provide the instructor with the opportunity to teach critical thinking within the rich content of modern psychology.
Readers are encouraged to send me comments at： keith.stanovich@utoronto.ca.
There exists a body of knowledge that is unknown to most people. This information concerns human behavior and consciousness in their various forms. It can be used to explain, predict, and control human actions. Those who have access to this knowledge use it to gain an understanding of other human beings. They have a more complete and accurate conception of what determines the behavior and thoughts of other individuals than do those
who do not have this knowledge.
Surprisingly enough, this unknown body of knowledge is the discipline of psychology.
What can I possibly mean when I say that the discipline of psychology is unknown? Surely, you may be thinking, this statement was not meant to be taken literally. Bookstores contain large sections full of titles dealing with psychology. Television and radio talk shows regularly feature psychological topics. Magazine articles quote people called psychologists talking about a variety of topics. Nevertheless, there is an important sense in which the field of psychology is unknown.
Despite much seeming media attention, the discipline of psychology remains for the most part hidden from the public. The transfer of psychological knowledge that is taking place via the media is largely an illusion. Few people are aware that the majority of the books they see in the psychology sections of many bookstores are written by individuals with absolutely no standing in the psychological community. Few are aware that many of the people to whom television applies the label psychologist would not be considered so by the American Psychological Association or the Association for Psychological Science. Few are aware that many of the most visible psychological experts have contributed no information to the fund of knowledge in the discipline of psychology.
The flurry of media attention paid to psychological topics has done more than simply present inaccurate information. It has also obscured the very real and growing knowledge base in the field of psychology. The general public is unsure about what is and is not psychology and is unable to independently evaluate claims about human behavior. Adding to the problem is the fact that many people have a vested interest in a public that is either without evaluative skills or that believes there is no way to evaluate psychological claims. The latter view, sometimes called the anything goes attitude, is one of the fallacies discussed in this book, and it is particularly costly to the public. Many pseudosciences are multimillion-dollar industries that depend on the lack of public awareness that claims about human behavior can be tested. The general public is also unaware that many of the claims made by these pseudosciences e.g., astrology, psychic surgery, speed reading, biorhythms, therapeutic touch, subliminal self-help tapes, facilitated communication, and psychic detectives have been tested and proved false. The existence of the pseudoscience industry, which is discussed in this book, increases the medias tendency toward sensationalistic reporting of science. This tendency is worse in psychology than in other sciences, and
understanding the reasons why this is so is an important part of learning how to think straight about psychology.
This book, then, is directed not at potential researchers in psychology but at a much larger group： the consumers of psychological information. The target audience is the beginning psychology student and the general reader who have encountered information on psychological issues in the general media and have wondered how to go about evaluating its validity.
This book is not a standard introductory psychology text. It does not outline a list of facts that psychological research has uncovered. Indeed, telling everyone to take an introductory psychology course at a university is probably not the ultimate solution to the inaccurate portrayal of psychology in the media. There are many laypeople with a legitimate interest in psychology who do not have the time, money, or access to a university to pursue formal study. More importantly, as a teacher of university-level psychology courses, I am forced to admit that my colleagues and I often fail to give our beginning students a true understanding of the science of psychology. The reason is that lower-level courses often do not teach the critical analytical skills that are the focus of this book. As instructors, we often become obsessed with contentwith covering material. Every time we stray a little from the syllabus to discuss issues such as psychology in the media, we feel a little guilty and begin to worry that we may not cover all the topics before the end of the term.
Consider the average introductory psychology textbook. Many now contain between 600 and 800 multicolumned pages and reference literally hundreds of studies in the published literature. Of course, there is nothing wrong with such books containing so much material. It simply reflects the increasing knowledge base in psychology. There are, however, some unfortunate side effects. Instructors are often so busy trying to cram their students full of dozens of theories, facts, and experiments that they fail to deal with some of the fundamental questions and misconceptions that students bring with them to the study of psychology. Rather than dealing directly with these misconceptions, the instructors and the introductory textbook authors often hope that if students are exposed to enough of the empirical content of psychology, they will simply induce the answers to their questions. In short, the instructors hope that students will recognize the implicit answers to these questions in the discussions of empirical research in several content areas. All too often this hope is frustrated. In a final review sessionor in office hours at the end of the terminstructors are often shocked and discouraged by questions and comments that might have been expected on the first day of the course but not after 14 weeks： But psychology experiments arent real life; what can they tell us?; Psychology just cant be a real science like chemistry, can it?; But I heard a therapist on TV say the opposite of what our textbook said; I think this theory isstupidmy brother behaves just the opposite of what it says; Psychology is nothing more than common sense, isnt it?; Everyone knows what anxiety
iswhy bother defining it? For many students, such questions are not implicitly answered merely by a consideration of the content of psychology. In this book, I deal explicitly with the confusions that underlie questions and comments such as these.
Unfortunately, research has shown that the average introductory psychology course does surprisingly little to correct some of entering students misconceptions about the discipline Keith & Beins, 2008; Kowalski & Taylor, 2009; Standing & Huber, 2003; Taylor & Kowalski, 2004. This unfortunate fact provides the rationale for this book. Psychology students need explicit instruction in the critical thinking skills that will make them into independent evaluators of psychological information.
Years after students have forgotten the content of an introductory psychology course, they will still use the fundamental principles covered in this book to evaluate psychological claims. Long after Eriksons stages of development have been forgotten, students will be using the thinking tools introduced in this text to evaluate new psychological information encountered in the media. Once acquired, these skills will serve as lifelong tools that will aid in the evaluation of knowledge claims. First, they provide the ability to conduct an initial gross assessment of plausibility. Second, these skills provide some criteria for assessing the reliability of expert opinion.
Because the need to rely on expert opinion can never be eliminated in a complex society, the evaluation of an experts credibility becomes essential to knowledge acquisition. Although these critical thinking skills can be applied to any discipline or body of knowledge, they are particularly important in the area of psychology because the field is so often misrepresented in the general media.
Many psychologists are pessimistic about any effort to stem the tide of misinformation about their discipline. Although this pessimism is, unfortunately, often justified, this consumers guide to psychology was motivated by the idea that psychologists must not let this problem become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Although I have welcomed the opportunity to prepare several editions of How to Think Straight About Psychology, it is unfortunately true that the reasons for the books existence are just as applicable today as they were when I wrote the first edition. Media presentations of psychology are just as misleading as they ever were, and students in introductory psychology courses enter with as many misconceptions as they ever did. Thus, the goals of all subsequent editions have remained the same. These goals are shared by an increasing number of psychology instructors. Stanford University psychologist Roger Shepard 1983 echoed all the concerns that motivated the writing of the first edition of this text： Although most undergraduate psychology students may not go on to scientific careers, one hopes that they acquire some facility for the critical evaluation of the incomplete, naive, confused, or exaggerated reports of social science findings to which they will continue to be exposed by the popular media. . . . Widespread notions that human behavior and mental phenomena can be adequately understood through unaided common sense or, worse, by reference to
nonempirical pseudosciences, such as astrology, present us with a continuing challenge p. 855.
The goal of this book is to present a short introduction to the critical thinking skills that will help students to better understand the subject matter of psychology and better understand events in the world in which they live.
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