Textbook author discusses fallacy of common sense
Joseph Starkloff
Bob Johnson, co-author of MCC’s psychology 101 book “Psychology: Core Concepts,” spoke to students in the Navajo Room on Nov. 2. The event was hosted by PSI BETA, the honor society in psychology for community and junior colleges, and focused on how common sense can often be wrong.
Ann Ewing, the program coordinator for PSI BETA, spoke about the turnout.
“We had over 300 people here, (which) is a good success and they seemed to enjoy it,” she said.
Much of the speech covered a myth-busting quiz that was placed on each seat before the event began.
The quiz was true or false and covered inaccurate myths such as intelligence being largely fixed by genetics, the most common cause of ulcers being stress, that people have different learning styles, that optimistic outlooks help cure serious physical illnesses, and that lie detectors can tell if an individual is lying or not.
It also defined psychological terms such as confirmation bias, the tendency for individuals to favor information that confirms their own beliefs, the backfire effect, strengthening misinformation by being reminded of it, and correlation-causation fallacy, the notion that correlation between two factors does not mean one is the cause of the actions of another.
Johnson went through each myth and demonstrated how the data he collected goes against common sense.
“The underlining theme (of the speech) was don’t trust common sense and try to be skeptical of things you’ve always thought as true. We can all fall prey. The smarter we think we are the more apt we are to fall prey to empiricism and common sense,” Johnson said.
He also identified the concept of confirmation bias as the main idea he wanted the audience to remember after the speech.
Ewing also encouraged students to join PSI BETA.
“(It’s) a great organization for students to get involved with. They don’t have to be a psychology major, they just have to have an interest in psychology. We do a lot of interesting, educational and fun things,” she said.
More information on PSI BETA can be found online at http://www.mesacc.edu/dept2/psibeta
