PSYCH291 Lecture Notes - Telepathy, Clinical Psychology, Psychokinesis
24 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
*there exists much confusion as to the nature and function of psychological research amongst the public. *self help books, radio talk shows, etc. geared more toward entertainment than actual sharing of scientific knowledge. *case studies and personal stories are not scientific! *in psychology, we want the aggregate or average. *example: mclean"s magazine article on putting the child first". *adult children of divorce actually are slightly more anxious than adult children of non- divorce. *studies of the appropriate group of comparison (parents who stay together for the children), show that these kids are the most maladjusted". *telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition (from the. *public associates this type of subject as being identified with psychology. It"s all common sense: the heads i win, tails you lose problem. *positive results taken as support, negative (null) results not taken as evidence against. *too often, aggregate data ignored in favour of results that support one"s particular theoretical position.
