Introduction to Psychology
Questions for critical thinking
topics 1 – 3
Week 1:
Introductio n – part 1
• Can you think of a time when you used your intuition to analyze an outcome, only to be surprised later to find that your explanation was completely incorrect? Did this surprise help you understand how intuition may sometimes lead us astray?
• Describe the scientific method in a way that someone who knows nothing about science could understand it.
• Consider a behavior that you find to be
important and think about its potential causes
at different levels of explanation. How do you
think psychologists would study this behavior?
Week 1:
Introductio n – part 2
• What type of questions can psychologists answer that philosophers might not be able to answer as completely or as accurately? Explain why you think psychologists can answer these questions better than philosophers can.
• Choose one of the major questions of psychology and provide some evidence from your own
experience that supports one side or the other.
• Choose two of the fields of psychology discussed
in this section and explain how they differ in their
approaches to understanding behavior and the
level of explanation at which they are focused.
Week 2:
Psycholog y as a
science – part 1
• Give an example from personal experience of how you or someone you know have
benefited from the results of scientific research.
• Find and discuss a research project that in
your opinion has ethical concerns. Explain why you find these concerns to be troubling.
• Indicate your personal feelings about the use of animals in research. When should and
should not animals be used? What principles
have you used to come to these conclusions?
Week 2:
Psycholog y as a
science – part 2
• There is a negative correlation between the row that a
student sits in in a large class (when the rows are numbered from front to back) and his or her final grade in the class. Do you think this represents a causal relationship or a spurious relationship, and why?
• Think of two variables (other than those mentioned in this book) that are likely to be correlated, but in which the
correlation is probably spurious. What is the likely common- causal variable that is producing the relationship?
• Imagine a researcher wants to test the hypothesis that participating in psychotherapy will cause a decrease in reported anxiety. Describe the type of research design the investigator might use to draw this conclusion. What would be the independent and dependent variables in the
research?
Week 2:
Psycholog y as a
science – part 3
• The Pepsi Cola Corporation, now PepsiCo Inc., conducted the “Pepsi Challenge” by randomly
assigning individuals to taste either a Pepsi or a Coke.
The researchers labeled the glasses with only an “M”
(for Pepsi) or a “Q” (for Coke) and asked the participants to rate how much they liked the beverage. The research showed that subjects
overwhelmingly preferred glass “M” over glass “Q,”
and the researchers concluded that Pepsi was preferred to Coke. Can you tell what confounding
variable is present in this research design? How would you redesign the research to eliminate the confound?
• Locate a research report of a meta-analysis.
Determine the criteria that were used to select the studies and report on the findings of the research.
Week 3:
Biological aspects of psycholog y – part 1
• Imagine an action that you engage in
every day and explain how neurons and
neurotransmitters might work together to
help you engage in that action.
Week 3:
Biological aspects of psycholog y – part 2
• Do you think that animals experience emotion? What aspects of brain structure might lead you to believe that they do or do not?
• Consider your own experiences and speculate on which parts of your brain might be particularly well developed as a result of these experiences.
• Which brain hemisphere are you likely to be using when you search for a fork in the silverware drawer?
Which brain hemisphere are you most likely to be using when you struggle to remember the name of an old friend?
• Do you think that encouraging left-handed children to use their right hands is a good idea? Why or why not?
