How to Think Straight About Psychology

Keith Stanovich's widely used and highly acclaimed book helps students become more discriminating consumers of psychological information, helping them recognize pseudoscience and be able to distinguish it from true psychological research. Stanovich helps instructors teach critical thinking skills within the rich context of psychology. It is the leading text of its kind. How to Think Straight About Psychology says about the discipline of psychology what many instructors would like to say but haven't found a way to. That is one reason adopters have called it "an instructor's dream text" and often comment "I wish I had written it. It tells my students just what I want them to hear about psychology". Presents psychological topics such as falsifiability, operationalism, experimental control, converging evidence, correlational vs. experimental studies, and statistics as "tools" for critical evaluation, providing students with a set of practical consumer skills to independently evaluate psychological claims. Discusses psychology in the media and gives students some "consumer rules" for dealing with it. Presents information on how to differentiate between true psychological research and pseudoscience. Provides instructors with the opportunity to teach critical thinking skills within the rich context of modern psychology.