Method Participants

1. Effect of Exposure to Science Perspectives on Agreement with Unsupported Psychological Claims Lawrence Patihis, Yuan Nielsen, and Christos Korgan Department of Psychology, California State University, Northridge Introduction Pseudoscience and unsupported claims are costly to society in terms of opportunity, financial and health costs (Stanovich, 2004). Patients can be harmed by unsupported psychological treatments, both physically and mentally (Shermer, 2004). Teaching pseudoscience demarcation criteria in semester long courses increased critical thinking (e.g. Penningroth, Despain, & Gray, 2007) . The signs of a pseudoscience include: lack of falsifiability, lack of connection (connectivity) to existing science, lack of peer review, mono-causal explanations and others. In this study we ask: If we expose participants to one of these pseudoscience demarcation criteria (connectivity), will that reduce their susceptibility to unsupported claims? We researched 12 psychology-related claims and either found no support or peer-reviewed articles that disputed or debunked the claims. Hypothesis We hypothesized that participants exposed to a low-connectivity science perspective (great-leap model) would agree more with unsupported psychological claims than participants exposed to a high-connectivity perspective (converging-evidence model). Discussion We found no support for our hypothesis that exposure to a converging-evidence vignette would decrease susceptibility to unsupported claims compared to a great-leap vignette. The 2-minute exposure was not enough to enhance critical thinking. Since Penningroth et al. (2007) found that their semester-long course enhanced critical thinking, we recommend the teaching of pseudoscience demarcation criteria. Our vignettes were perhaps too short, too shallowly processed, or one pseudoscience demarcation criterion may not be effective in isolation. Since some psychology students agreed with claims about repressed memory, facilitated communication, vaccines causing autism, and homeopathy (see Table 1), we recommend an open dialogue about the evidence that refutes these claims (see McNally, 2005; Green & Shane, 1994; Taylor et al., 1999; Shang et al., 2005). The high level of agreement we found to these claims emphasizes the importance of teaching the evidence surrounding the claims to psychology students during there first and second year. • Results • A 2 (Science Perspective [converging evidence, great leap]) x 2 (Gender) x 2 (Class [anthropology, psychology]) ANOVA was conducted, with the participants’ average level of agreement with the unsupported claims as the dependent measure. • Susceptibility score was not higher in the great-leap condition (M = 3.91, SD = .63) than in the converging-evidence condition (M = 3.34, SD = .54), F(1, 166) = .91, p = .34 (see Figure 1 below). • Further analysis showed that the mean susceptibility score was not higher in participants who indicated they agreed with the great-leap perspective (M = 3.44, SD = .69) compared to those who indicated that they agreed with the converging evidence perspective (M = 3.32, SD = .52), F(3, 170) = 1.23, p = .30. • These results did not support our hypothesis. • __________________________________________ • We did not find a difference between men and women. • Agreement with unsupported psychological claims was not higher in participants enrolled in anthropology classes compared to participants enrolled in psychology classes. • To investigate the effectiveness of undergraduate psychology training, we examined the percentage of agreement with unsupported psychological claims in those enrolled in third year psychology classes (see Table 1). • We found a positive correlation between the age and level of agreement with the homeopathy claim (r = .233, p = .003). See Figure 2 below. References Green, G., & Shane, H. (1994). Science, reason, and facilitated communication. Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps, 19, 151-172. McNally, R. (2005). Debunking myths about trauma and memory. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 50, 817-822. Penningroth, S. L., Despain, L. H., & Gray, M. J. (2007). A course designed to improve psychological critical thinking. Teaching of Psychology, 34, 153-157. Shang, A., Huwiler-Müntener, K., Nartey, L., Jüni, P., Dörig, S., Sterne, J., Pewsner, D., Egger, M. (2005). Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy. The Lancet, 366, 726-732. Shermer, M. (2004). Death by Theory. Scientific American, 290, 48. Stanovich, K.E. (2004), How to think straight about psychology, 7th Ed. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, Pearson Education, Inc. Taylor, B., Miller, E., Farrington, C., Petropoulos, M., Favot-Mayaud, I., Li, J., et al. (1999). Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association. Lancet, 353, 2026-2029. Method Participants 176 undergraduate students (78 psychology, 98 anthropology; 42 men, 132 women). Mage = 22.1 Design and Materials Between-subjects design: randomly assigned packets Independent variable = science perspectives (converging-evidence vignette, great-leap vignette) Excerpt from converging-evidence vignette: “A good new theory in science does not go against existing knowledge or evidence.” Excerpt from great-leap vignette: “A good new theory in science may cause a scientific revolution, breaking the rules of existing knowledge.” Dependent Variable = level of agreement with 12 unsupported claims using a 6-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree) Example excerpts of unsupported claims: “vaccines cause autism” “trauma can be immediately repressed and later retrieved exactly in therapy” “conversion therapy can effectively treat homosexuality” “homeopathy has a beneficial effect” Procedure Participants read the science-perspective vignettes (2 mins) Participants read the 12 claims and indicated their level of agreement to each claim (12 mins) Table 1. Percentage agreement with claims of those enrolled in psychology Figure 1. Agreement with unsupported claims by condition Acknowledgments Sincere thanks are extended to several California State University, Northridge professors who helped in the execution of our study: Jonathan Zeledon, M.A., Mark Otten, Ph.D., and Suzanne Scheld, Ph.D. Many thanks to professor Lisa Farwell, Ph.D., of Santa Monica College for her help, ideas and inspirational teaching in critical thinking. For further information Please contact: LPatihis@uci.edu, Yuan.Nielsen.571@my.csun.edu, or Christos.Korgan.39@my.csun.edu . Figure 2. Scatterplot of age by agreement with homeopathy claim