Fables for Developing Skeptical and Critical Thinking in Psychology
by John Marton
Category: Psychology

I have found that the greatest obstacle to learning critical thinking skills in psychology is the illusion of knowledge. Learners come with life experience, pop beliefs, and smatterings of pseudoscientific information including many myths and misconceptions. For development in thinking to occur, questioning about preexisting knowledge must take place. It is the illusion of certain knowledge that may impede learning. How to gently create doubt about misinformation and open up learners or seekers to empirically based information? A frontal assaut on learners' current beliefs may not be the best approach. It may only further convince the believers in psychics, horoscope, alternate healers, and unbounded self improvement that empirical psychology holds nothing for them. It may have the same discouraging effect on those who are struggling in other ways with the inevitable problems that human beings have. In the war between the forces of organized irrationality and the methods of science, this book holds a unique place. Through a series of ten interconnected narratives or 'fables', it explores the cognitive processes that make us vulnerable to irrationality and provides a world view based on psychological science. The topics of the fables parallel the organization of standard introductory psychology texts. For example, the first five fables deal with critical thinking, sensation and perception, consciousness, learning, and memory. The fables illustrate how illusory correlation, confirmation bias, hindsight bias, mental sets, selective attention and memory as well as other social cognitive processes lead to the adoption and maintenance of common misconceptions. The fables promote comprehension and application of basic psychological principles. Use of these particular fables in learning and teaching has been shown to reduce beliefs in the paranormal. The fables and accompanying discussion and assignment guides provide an actice, engaging, and memorable way to learn.