0 1 The First Understanding of Half-masked Psychology —— Interpretation of Say No to Pseudopsychology

The book recommended to you today is Say No to Pseudopsychology, which is a book delayed by its title. Why do you say that? Among many psychology books with attractive titles (such as Mind Reading, Color Character and Constellation), it is not conspicuous. However, the score of this book in Douban is as high as 9. 1. Since 1983 was first published for more than 30 years, it has been regarded as a classic introduction to psychology and adopted by more than 300 educational institutions around the world. There are also many Chinese versions of this book, such as This is Psychology and Psychology Different from Many. Keith, the author of this book? Yasiniu Vicky, currently a professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto, won the Gwelmel Education Award in 20 10 and the Thorndike Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association in 20 12.

Is Say No to Pseudopsychology a general psychology book? Don't! This book is different from ordinary classic psychology books. These books often systematically introduce various knowledge of psychology, highly technical psychological experiments, psychostatistics and so on. Moreover, the content of this book is not taught by the professor in psychology class and can only be understood without words. It is more similar to a "consumer guide". It pays more attention to the research methods and thinking modes of psychology, and only teaches you critical thinking and methods, which makes it easier for you to get rid of the fog, discard the false and retain the true, and better understand psychology.

So, what is psychology? Potential development, psychological manipulation, colors, constellations, hypnosis, mind reading ... Are these things psychology? Is psychology equal to Freud, chicken soup for the soul, extrasensory perception, astrology or metaphysics promoted by the media? All these questions can be answered in this book.

Then why is psychology different? Psychology studies issues closely related to people's lives, and studies psychological activities and behaviors. Compared with other disciplines, it is more misleading, because many problems in psychological research are exactly what everyone cares about. For example: what kind of people are easy to like? What kind of things make people happy (painful)? Why do people commit suicide? Does personality determine a person's fate? Is it true that babies are mothers when they have milk? ..... The more familiar the problem, when our own conclusions are not completely consistent with the conclusions drawn by psychologists, we often feel confused or even suspicious. For example, "I think this theory is nonsense-my brother's behavior is just the opposite of what this theory says." At this time, this book is particularly important. The thinking tools introduced in the book can help us to identify the authenticity of psychological information appearing in the media, especially to evaluate the credibility of some "experts". In all kinds of contemporary society, all kinds of media channels have opinions, so it is necessary to judge the credibility of expert opinions.

When it comes to psychology, many people can't help but stay at a respectful distance from others and feel that they are so inscrutable. That's because the public has a common misunderstanding of psychological researchers. The first typical question is "Do you know what I'm thinking now?" People think that people who study psychology can do anything. After studying psychology, they can read minds and tell fortune. Actually, it's not. Psychology is a science. This is not superstition, this is not a trick. Transcendental extrasensory problems such as constellation, zodiac, metaphysics and philosophy of life are not within the research scope of scientific psychology. Psychologists can't read minds. Psychologists will never guess what you are thinking at the moment. Even those experts who specialize in micro-expressions and body movements can only read a person's psychological state at this time, but can't see a person's specific thoughts.

The second misunderstanding about psychology is "So you must hypnotize and interpret dreams?" People who have such doubts often mistakenly think that psychology is Freud's psychoanalysis and psychological counseling. In fact, there are many branches of psychology: clinical psychology, educational psychology, religious psychology and so on. Among a large number of research topics concerned by modern psychologists, Freud's work actually accounts for only a small part. Freud's problem is that his data is not enough to support his theory, and the characteristic of psychology is to seek the understanding of behavior in a scientific way. Psychology is a loosely combined academic kingdom. It is not a grand theory, but many different theories. Each theory can only explain limited aspects of behavior. For example, there are 53 branches under the American Psychological Association, and there are many branches under each branch. The mental health problem that we often care about is only a small branch. In short, many psychologists can't psychoanalyze, interpret dreams or even hypnotize.

The third and most crucial question of psychology is "What, do you still do psychological experiments?" This kind of questioning makes psychological researchers laugh and cry. As we all know, mainstream scientific psychology has gone a long way on the road of positivism. Psychology is a behavioral science research based on data. The conclusions about behavior in psychology are based on science, and the application of psychology comes from and is tested by scientific methods. Scientific thinking should have three characteristics: first, the problems studied should be solvable, and the unsolvable problems are not the category of scientific research; Second, research methods should embody positivism, and theoretical assumptions should be based on evidence and experiments; Third, the conclusions should be repeatable so that others can copy the research conclusions. These three characteristics are actually a practical framework for judging whether an idea or viewpoint is scientific or not. As a framework, its scope of application will not only be in the field of psychology, but can be used in all aspects of daily life and work. No matter what field the ideas we encounter belong to, we can think, consult, analyze and seek truth from these three angles.

This book doesn't teach you the fancy skills of seeing through people's hearts, and there is no metaphysics such as hypnotic prediction. It just teaches you how to make an ideal scientific analysis when dealing with problems. This book is not only for beginners who are about to become psychological researchers, but also for readers who have been exposed to some psychological topics in the mass media and want to know how to judge whether this information is reasonable or not. This book is designed to help readers establish scientific thinking in the field of psychology and understand what is truly credible psychology. The book clarifies all kinds of misunderstandings and myths about psychology, and the theoretical narrative echoes the wonderful cases, which is very interesting.