Pseudoscience

Brian J. Piper, Ph.D.

Goals

• Definitions• Examples

ComparisonScience Pseudoscience

Age Recent Old

Empirical Yes No

Falsifiable Yes No

Replicable Yes No

Not (non) Science• Psychokinesis: moving objects mentally

• Telepathy: mind to mind communication

• Clairvoyance: perceiving distant events

• Precognition: perceiving future events

Entertaining

• Stephen King: 34 best sellers

Extremely Common

N = 1000/country2005

http://www.gallup.com/poll/19558/Paranormal-Beliefs-Come-SuperNaturally-Some.aspx

Higher Among Females

Example 1 • A Professor at UCLA gave the “Diagnostic Interest Blank”

which consisted of:– hobbies, reading, materials, personal characteristics, job duties, and secret hopes and ambitions of one's

ideal person

• Weeks later students received “individualized feedback”:– You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept

others’ statements without satisfactory proof.– You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become

dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.– At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made

the right decision or done the right thing.

Forer, B. (1949). J of Abnormal Psychology, 118, 123.

Example 1: Astrology • Professor at UCLA gave the “Diagnostic Interest

Blank” which consisted of: hobbies, reading, materials, personal characteristics, job duties, and secret hopes and ambitions of one's ideal person

• Weeks later students received “individualized feedback”

• How effective is the DIB in revealing your personality?– Scale from 0 (poor) to 5 (perfect), Mean = 4.3!

Forer, B. (1949). J of Abnormal Psychology, 118, 123.

Example 2: Rorschach Test

• Hermann Rorschach developed projective test in 1921

• Lee Cronbach “There is nothing in the literature to encourage reliance on Rorschach interpretations”.

1884-1922

Example #3: EMDR• Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing: imagine trauma +

follow therapists rapidly moving finger (“reprogram the brain”)• Participant groups matched based on prior trauma (moderate), sex,

and age• Control: imagine trauma while staring at stationary object (same

duration as experimental

*

*

Dunn et al. (1996). J Behav Therapy Exp Psychiatry, 27, 231-239.

Example #4: Psychoanalytic• Sigmund Freud viewed personality as consisting

of:– Id: basic desires– Superego: our conscious– Ego: provides balance between Id & Superego

Incorrect Ideas of Freud

• Repression: the idea of not remembering traumatic experiences is inconsistent with PTSD

• Cocaine for Morphine Addiction: this didn’t work

• Dreams Interpretation: weird• Overall: not testable, few predictions

ComparisonScience Pseudoscience

Age Recent Old

Empirical Yes No

Falsifiable Yes No

Replicable Yes No

Post Freud: Thematic Apperception Test

Ambiguous stimuli are used to generate stories that reveal personality

Conclusion