Skeptical Inquirer magazine : May/June 1998 : Buy this back issue Susan Blackmore A Roper Poll claimed that nearly four million Americans have had certain “indicator” experiences and therefore had probably been abducted by aliens. But a study of 126 school children and 224 undergraduates shows knowledge of aliens is related more to watching television […]
When someone develops a test of some feature of personality, or a test of intelligence, or a test of any other human characteristic that can differ between people, how can one decide if the test is a good test of that characteristic? Another way of asking the same question is to ask: What makes a […]
Cognitive Dissonance It is important to note that the most significant finding from the Festinger and Carlsmith study is not that payment of just one dollar was enough to get most participants to tell someone that a dull task was actually interesting. The most important finding is that the act of telling someone else that […]
If introspection and casual observation were enough to answer the questions of interest to psychologists, there would be no need for a science of psychology. However, casual observation is subject to a variety of limitations, biases and errors of judgment that may sometimes lead us to hold beliefs that are untrue. (See “Thinking and Problem […]
