ATP 2016 - Critical Thinking in Psychology

1. ATP ‘16 Paperclips and Toasters:
Critical Thinking in Psychology.
Jamie Davies
How many uses
can you think
of for a
paper
clip?

2. Outcome Type Things
By the end of the session participants:
• Should be able to describe what critical
thinking is.
• Have reflected on teaching critical thinking
skills.
• Should be able to describe what goes into a
toaster.
• Have discussed strategies to embed critical
thinking skills into the curriculum.

3. There exists a gap between students’ understanding
of research methodology and their capacity to think
critically

4. Knowing a great deal is not the
same as being smart;
intelligence is not information
alone but also judgment, the
manner in which information is
collected and used.
Carl Sagan

5. • Reviewing from different perspectives in order to
formulate own personalised judgement / view
point and to be able to apply it to the matter in
hand and engage in development
• Stepping back & recognising different
perspectives
• Comprehending and valuing different viewpoints
• Appreciating someone else’s viewpoint and logic
but not necessarily agreeing
• Being able to underpin your argument with
evidence
• Reviewing and developing – a constant cycle of
reflection and adaptation
• Analysis – taking things to pieces

6. Components of Critical Thinking
- Analysing arguments, claims, or evidence
(Ennis, 1985; Facione, 1990; Halpern, 1998; Paul, 1992)
- Making inferences using inductive or deductive
reasoning
(Ennis, 1985; Facione, 1990; Paul, 1992; Willingham, 2007)
- Judging or evaluating
(Case, 2005; Ennis, 1985; Facione, 1990; Lipman, 1988)
- Making decisions or solving problems
(Ennis, 1985; Halpern, 1998; Willingham, 2007).

7. Design a study to investigate if
people will be obedient to an
authority figure’s instructions

8. How to make a piece of toast?
Now, imagine you don’t have a toaster …
what would you do?
How could you make the
toast?
In small groups you have 90 seconds to
write a set of instructions as to how to
make the perfect piece of toast.

9. Left to his own
devices he
couldn’t build a
toaster. He could
just about make
a sandwich and
that was it.Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless, 1992
It takes an entire civilisation to build a toaster

10. What are you missing?
What questions might a person running the
study need to ask?

11. What is
critical (rational)
thinking in
psychology?

12. “savvy consumers and
producers of research”
(Sternberg, 1999).

13. Correlation ≠ Causation

15. • More than 98% of convicted criminals are bread
eaters.
• 50% of all children who grow up in bread-
consuming households score below average on
standardised tests.
• In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was
baked in the home, the average life expectancy
was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates
were unacceptably high; many women died in
childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow
fever and influenza ravaged whole nations.
• More than 90% of violent crimes are committed
within 24 hours of eating bread.

19. “… science must begin with
myths, and with the criticism of
myths; neither with the collection
of observations, nor with the
invention of experiments, but
with the critical discussion of
myths, and of magical techniques
and practices.”
Popper (1963)
p66.

20. Most people use only 10% of their
brains.
The different sides of the brain
have different functions and do
different things.
Brain activity almost stops during
sleep.
Gamblers think differently than
non-gamblers.
Children all develop their cognitive
abilities at the same time in their
lives.
Human memory works like a tape
recorder or video camera.
Punishment is typically an effective
means of changing long-term
behaviour.
Researchers have demonstrated
that dreams possess an underlying
symbolic meaning.
The polygraph (“lie detector”) test
is a highly accurate means of
detecting dishonesty.
Happy people experience more
positive events in their lives than
do unhappy people.
Children learn to be aggressive
simply by watching others be
aggressive around them.
When we were younger we all had
sexual fantasies about our parents.
People with schizophrenia possess
more than one personality.
The characteristic feature of
Tourette’s Syndrome is swearing
and cursing.
Eyewitness testimony is usually
reliable.
Students have a good sense of
how well they know class material.
Psychology is a science.
A person’s intelligence is partially
determined by brain size.
Most of us would not follow
instructions from an authority figure
to hurt another person.
Parts of the brain can grow if they
are used more.
The power of the situation is far
higher than any personal wants or
desires.
Most people would walk on by if
they saw someone in need.
We all interpret the world the same
way. A smile is a smile. A laugh is
a laugh.
Humans are the only things on this
planet that can learn and use a
language.
Psychiatrists can reliably diagnose
those who have a mental disorder.
It is possible for a person to have
more than one personality.
Psychology is all about reading
peoples minds and analyzing their
behaviour.

21. CT | Criticisms of Psychology
1. Is psychology only common sense?
2. Do psychological theories provide new insight
into the human condition or do they document
the obvious?
3. Does psychology simply formalise what any
amateur already knows intuitively?
“Day after day social scientists go out into the world.
Day after day they discover that people’s behavior is
pretty much what you’d expect.”
Cullen Murphy, Editor, Atlantic Monthly (1990)

22. 1. The children in the aggressive model
condition made more aggressive
responses than the children in the
non-aggressive model condition
2. Boys made more aggressive
responses than girls
3. The boys in the aggressive model
conditions showed more aggressive
responses if the model was male
than if the model was female
4. The girls in the aggressive model
conditions also showed more
physical aggressive responses if the
model was male but more verbal
aggressive responses if the model
was female

23. TASK
In pairs look at the conclusions from
Lazarsfeld (1949) and suggest reasons
for the findings of the study.
What could have led to his findings?
Do the conclusions make sense?
Can you explain the conclusions that
he made?
[5 minutes]

24. Paul Lazarsfeld (1949) | The American
Soldier - An Expository Review
1. Better educated soldiers suffered more
adjustment problems than less educated
soldiers.
2. Southern soldiers coped better with the hot
South Sea Island climate than Northern
soldiers.
3. White privates were more eager to be
promoted officers than Black privates.
4. As long as the fighting continued, soldiers
were more eager to return home than after
the war ended.

25. Paul Lazarsfeld (1949) | The American
Soldier - An Expository Review
1. Better educated soldiers suffered fewer
adjustment problems than less educated
soldiers.
2. Northern soldiers coped better with the hot
South Sea Island climate than Southern
soldiers.
3. White privates were less eager to be
promoted officers than Black privates.
4. After the war ended soldiers were more
eager to return home than when the fighting
continued.

26. “Anything seems commonplace,
once explained”
Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes
Hindsight Bias
1. “I knew it all along phenomena”– the tendency to
perceive something as obvious or unavoidable, after
learning of the outcome.
2. Study of Hindsight bias: Teigen (1986)
• Evaluate actual proverbs and their opposites
Actual Proverb
• Fear is stronger than love.
• He that is fallen cannot help
him who is down.
• Wise men make proverbs and
fools repeat them.
Opposite
• Love is stronger than fear.
• He that is fallen can help him
who is down.
• Fools make proverbs and wise
men repeat them.

27. How could you (do
you) embed critical
thinking into your
classroom
activities?

29. P.A.L.S
PsychologyAppliedLearningScenarios

32. Maggie was walking down the street all excited because she was going to
meet a friend that she had not seen for a long time. She heard screaming
coming from a shop on the other side of the road and looking over saw
three masked men, one carrying a shotgun, run into a bank. She felt really
scared and hid inside a phone box where she called the police; on the phone
the operator had to calm her down to get the information they needed such
as location and what had happened. Maggie stayed in the box and watched
the events unfold – all at once there was a shot fired and loads of people
came running out of the bank. Some minutes later the three men ran out of
the bank and across the road into a transit van that moved off. Maggie
went across the road looking into the bank she saw a dead body on the floor
with some of the bank workers around it. The police then arrived.
The following day the police had 23 witnesses to the crime from both inside
the bank and the street outside. Maggie was one of these. With this being
such a serious event the police have requested the help of a psychologist to
advise them on their questioning methods, how they can get the most
reliable information from the witnesses and what factors they should be
aware of. They have asked you to compile a report.

33. What is the quality of the evidence?
Could the relationship have happened by chance?
Is there a control or comparison group?
Is the conclusion causal using correlational data?
Are there any confounding variables?
Are we over generalising based on an
unrepresentative sample?
Are there any biases in the research or data collection methods?
Can you actually falsify the theory?
Is the study claiming to have found the answer?

34. TheThe
ThinkingThinking
Ladder.Ladder.
Charlotte Russell
www.resourcd.com

35. Developing opinions, judgements & decisions.Developing opinions, judgements & decisions.
Critical thinking skills.Critical thinking skills.
Separating a whole an examining it’sSeparating a whole an examining it’s
component parts or features.component parts or features.
Using facts, rules, principles and applying themUsing facts, rules, principles and applying them
to examples or to solve a problem.to examples or to solve a problem.
Organisation and selection of facts, informationOrganisation and selection of facts, information
and knowledge.and knowledge.
Combining or organising information to form aCombining or organising information to form a
new whole or create something new.new whole or create something new.
Identification and recall of information. AlsoIdentification and recall of information. Also
known as Knowledge!known as Knowledge!

36. Thinking
Ladder
Tasks
Bloom-ing great!

38. Why do we study the WEIRDest
people?
http://jamiedavies.co/weird

42. “Knowing a great deal is not the same as
being smart; intelligence is not
information alone but also judgment, the
manner in which information is collected
and used”
Carl Sagan
“savvy consumers and
producers of research”
Sternberg

43. http://jamiedavies.co/atp16
@jamiedavies
Thank You