Experimental Psychology

 

 

 

Cornelia Fine has a degree in experimental psychology from Oxford University, an MPhil in criminology from Cambridge University, and a PhD in psychology from University College London. Fine references a lot of experimental psychology studies in her book and I'd like to take a look at what that means.

 

Experimental psychology use scientfic methods to research behavior. Experimental psychologists may do research on cognitive processes, animal behavior, neuroscience or personality along with many other subject fields.

 

It's more of a method of psychology than its own separate branch or field. Just like any other science, there are a lot of opportunities for bias, but as shown through Fine's book, the studies are often thought-provoking at the least. 

 

The Pigheaded Brain

Loyalty a step too far

 

"The brain evades, twists, discounts misinterprets, even makes up evidence—all so that we can retain that satisfying sense of being in the right." This chapter talks about how attached we are to our beliefs. Whether they are beliefs that we've held for decades to opinions formed in a few seconds, it really doesn't matter.


This chapter is linked closely with chapter one which was about the vain brain. The brain not only doesn't like to be proved wrong but also likes to stick with what it already believes. Fine shows this with two examples. First she mentions when someone hypothesized that the world was round and not flat, no one believed it for a long time. Then she talks about when scientist Alice Stewart hypothesized that prenatal x-rays were linked to prenatal cancer. In 1977, no obstetrician believed the scientist's theories at all. They even thought that Alice Stewart's work was based on babies that he somehow knew would get cancer. This example showed that even scientists and doctors are susceptible to the same brain tricks that are played on everyone else.


Fine provides lots of other experimental psychology studies, articles, and quirky anecdotes in this chapter leaving the reader to wonder how in control she is of her own brain.