TEACH & LEARN
clearly state their theories and are willing
Can you learn to think more
like a psychologist?
D. Alan Bensley with a guide to critical thinking
D
o you think the way a psychologist
thinks? One might hope that readers
of this publication would answer
with a resounding ‘Yes’ or at least ‘I’m
working on it’. But this assumes that
psychologists are good thinkers. In fact,
we sometimes make the same mistakes in
thinking as people with much less training
(Sternberg, 2007). Perhaps we should try
to think as psychologists do when their
thinking is at its best – when they think
critically.
Critical thinking is reflective thinking
in which a person reasons about relevant
evidence to draw a sound or good
conclusion (Bensley, 1998). Psychologists
need critical thinking to draw correct
conclusions from research, determine
which theory is best, make correct
diagnoses of mental disorders, determine
the most effective treatment, and solve
many other problems. Students often
appear to focus instead on learning facts
to pass an exam: this is not sufficient to
prepare you to think and work effectively
in psychology. And it’s not something that
will inevitably improve as a career
progresses: research suggests that having
more clinical training and experience
sometimes, but not always, increases
proficiency on tasks requiring critical
thinking such as assessment and diagnosis
(Garb, 1998). More focus on improving
critical thinking is needed.
Fortunately, research suggests that with
practice psychology students can improve
critical thinking skills, such as identifying
kinds of evidence in literature reviews
Bensley, D.A. (1998). Critical thinking in
references
psychology: A unified skills approach.
Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Bensley, D.A. (2002). Science and Bensley, D.A. & Haynes, C. (1995). The
pseudoscience: A critical thinking
primer. In M. Shermer (Ed.) The
Skeptic encyclopedia of pseudoscience.
Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Bensley, D.A., Biggs, K. & Crowe, D. (2007, Bloom, P. & Weisberg, D.S. (2007).
March). Direct infusion versus
traditional instruction of critical
128
to revise them. As you study psychology,
reflect on whether you hold any imprecise
commonsense beliefs that should be
replaced by the more precise terminology
and findings of scientific psychology.
2. Seek reasons
Ask ‘Why?’ when people make claims
without offering reasons. The less evidence
they provide, the more sceptical you
should be. For example, many self-help
gurus are self-appointed experts with
inadequate training and little concern for
(Bensley & Haynes, 1995), reasoning about whether scientific research supports what
statistics and methodology (VanderStoep & they recommend (Salerno, 2005). In
Shaughnessy, 1997), and analysing contrast, psychologists have increasingly
psychological arguments and research advocated using evidence-based practices;
(Bensley et al., 2007). that is, using treatments
Besides critical and interventions that
thinking skills, a scientific research has
psychologist should shown to be effective in
have critical thinking various ways.
dispositions (Halpern,
1998). Examples 3. Examine alternative
include open- viewpoints fairly
mindedness, By keeping your mind
intellectual curiosity, open to new ideas and
commitment to viewpoints, you may
reason, and a find a position you
sceptical attitude. favour has some
Therefore, as I make limitations you
the following general overlooked. This can
suggestions for save you the
improving critical embarrassment of
thinking skills, I will jumping to a wrong
also discuss conclusion or making
dispositions related to a bad decision. Sometimes
the skills and illustrate with examples when scientists are willing to consider
from psychology. unpopular ideas, they make unexpected
discoveries, too. For example, contrary
to decades of research, Macklis (2001)
1. Strive for precision and clarity in discovered that neurons in the
your thinking hippocampus, a small brain area associated
When it comes to relationships, do you with learning, do reproduce throughout
think ‘opposites attract’, or do ‘birds of life.
a feather flock together’? People have Psychologists must also be careful to
opinions about questions like these because avoid the common error of confirmation
they have their own commonsense theories bias or seeking evidence that favours their
of mind, which are often imprecise and own view while ignoring negative evidence.
resistant to change (Bloom & Weisberg, Mahoney (1977) found that reviewers
2007). In contrast, psychologists strive to tended to more favourably evaluate articles
thinking skills. Poster session Garb, H.N. (1998). Studying the clinician: Dispositions, skills, structure training,
presented at Eastern Psychological Judgment research and psychological and metacognitive monitoring.
Association, Philadelphia, PA. assessment. Washington, DC: American Psychologist, 53, 449–455.
American Psychological Association. Macklis, J.D. (2001). Neurobiology: New
acquisition of general purpose Green, G. (2002). Facilitated memories from new neurons. Nature,
strategic knowledge for communication. In M. Shermer (Ed.) 410, 314–315.
argumentation. Teaching of The Skeptic encyclopedia of Mahoney, M.J. (1977). Publication
Psychology, 22, 41–45. pseudoscience. Santa Barbara, CA: prejudices: An experimental study of
ABC-CLIO. confirmatory bias in the peer review
Childhood origins of adult resistance Halpern, D.F. (1998). Teaching critical system. Cognitive Therapy and
to science. Science, 316, 996–997. thinking for transfer across domains: Research, 1, 161–175.
vol 21 no 2 february 2008

agreeing with their own views than articles
of equal quality that disagreed.
4. Be sensitive to the quality of evidence
Do not be overly impressed with weak
evidence provided by anecdotes or vivid
examples. In the early 1990s, both parents
and professionals were greatly impressed
by stories of a new technique where
facilitators guided the hands of autistic
individuals to help them type responses
on a keyboard. This ‘facilitated
communication’ (FC) apparently helped
autistic children write poems and do
challenging academic work well beyond
their previous capabilities. Early evidence
supporting FC came from case studies and
naturalistic observation (Green, 2002).
Scientists remained sceptical, however,
because case studies and naturalistic
observation studies do not allow much
control of extraneous variables, such as the
influence of the facilitator. When
experimenters controlled and manipulated
the information available to the facilitator
and autistic person being facilitated, they
showed that it was the facilitator producing
the messages, not the autistic person
(Mostert, 2001).
Another kind of evidence, the
statements of authorities, vary in quality
depending on the knowledge and true
expertise of the authority. For example,
in 2005 US actor and scientologist Tom
Cruise stated that he had studied the
history of psychiatry and knew that
psychiatric treatments were harmful.
In response, Dr James H. Scully, medical
director of the American Psychiatric
Association, argued that many studies had
clearly shown that drug and talk therapy
treatments help people with mental
disorders. While we might take Mr Cruise’s
statements about acting to be authoritative,
we should trust Dr Scully’s statements
about treatment of mental disorders more.
5. Consider how much evidence is
available
The more data or observations going into
the results of a study, the more you can
trust the results, assuming the study is of
Mostert, M.P. (2001). Facilitated Sternberg, R.J. (2007). Critical thinking in
communication since 1995. Journal of
Autism and Developmental Disorders,
31, 287–313.
Rotton, J. & Kelly, I. (1985). Much ado
about the full moon: A meta-analysis
of lunar-lunacy research. VanderStoep, S.W. & Shaughnessy, J.J.
Psychological Bulletin, 97, 286–306.
Salerno, S. (2005). SHAM: How the self-
help movement made America
helpless. New York: Crown.
read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk
good quality. Likewise, the more
good studies replicating the same
result, the more you may trust the
results and the hypothesis they
support. For example, of the 37
studies Rotton and Kelly (1985)
reviewed on the relation between
the phases of the moon and
abnormal and deviant behaviour,
they found only a few low-quality
studies that supported the ‘lunar
lunacy’ hypothesis, suggesting it
has weak support.
6. Draw conclusions consistent
with the best evidence
available
As you learn more about
psychology, favour those theories,
hypotheses and practices with the
most high-quality evidence
supporting them; but remain
sceptical. As new and better
studies are done, you can look
forward to improvements in
theory and practice that are even
more consistent with the data.
In contrast, pseudosciences like
astrology do not change despite
much research showing they are
wrong and do not work (Bensley,
2002). When was the last time
you heard an astrologer say, ‘We
just got the results of some new
research and we have revised the
personality description of Virgos?’
7. Seek feedback and reflect
on the quality of your thinking
As you study psychology, check
your thinking to see if you are
following the suggestions. Ask
other people to critically
comment on your writing and
work. Try to remain open-minded
about criticism and learn what
you can from their feedback.
I Dr D. Alan Bensley is a cognitive
psychologist at Frostburg State
University
ABensley@frostburg.edu
psychology: It really is critical. In R.J.
Sternberg, H.L. Roediger & D.F.
Halpern (Eds.) Critical thinking in
psychology. (pp.289–296). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
(1997). Taking a course in research
methods improves reasoning about
real-life events. Teaching of
Psychology, 24, 122–124.
teaching and learning
Setting up a student
research group
Terry Hanley and Clare Lennie
We have over 100 students at the University of
Manchester engaged in master’s- and doctorate-level
research into counselling and related areas, and we set
up the Counselling Research Group (CRG) to support
these individuals during their studies. Creating the group
was a proactive response to student feedback requesting
more contact with the university and peers whilst
undertaking research projects. It reflects a holistic
approach to education, catering for both the academic
and personal requirements of students. It provides
students with an accessible supportive peer group that
can be used to present and discuss work, or just meet
and have a coffee with others facing a similar challenge.
The group meets quarterly for a four-hour period
during a weekday evening. It also ends each year with
a full-day student research conference and links in to
a short courses programme that has been developed
within the department. The session content is student-
led, and input ranges from the formal to the informal. We
regularly get 30 or so students and outside researchers
attending, and feedback has generally been positive. In
keeping with the ethos of the group, funding was sought
from Learnhigher to more formally evaluate its impact.
Those who had not attended the groups reported two
major blocks for them – practical difficulties with times,
and the whole idea of the group being unattractive. We
decided to alternate the days of the group and to create
an online element for disseminating the work presented.
It was also suggested that we provide more detailed
information about the group (both the literature created
to promote the group and by talking to each student
cohort).
Those who attended the group generally valued the
practical (‘hearing what others are doing’) and
psychological support (‘contact with similarly minded
people’) which the group provided, and found it useful to
network professionally. On the downside they sometimes
questioned the relevance of some of the sessions to the
work that they were undertaking. They also found the
room to be a little uncomfortable due to the amount of
people attending (a factor that had surprised us too!).
Reflecting upon the group has raised a number of
areas for us to work on, but we think the CRG has been
a successful experiment. We hope that others may be
interested in developing similar groups, and anyone in
and around the Manchester area is very welcome to pop
by and attend ours.
I Terry Hanley is a Lecturer in Counselling at the
University of Manchester and an ESRC-funded PhD
student at the same institution.
terry.hanley@manchester.ac.uk
I Clare Lennie is a Lecturer in Counselling and
Educational Psychology at the University of Manchester
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