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Why We Believe: Fostering Scientific Thought
and perception, psychology students develop science literacy that extends into the natural
and physical sciences. But their knowledge of areas in physics, chemistry, and biology can
remain limited, just as physics students might not show a great deal of science literacy in
the behavioral sciences or in the other life sciences. As Lehman et al. (1988) have shown,
however, exposure to the social areas of psychology exert a more general, positive effect on
students’ reasoning abilities for situations that are not psychological in nature.
A sophisticated approach to answering complex questions about issues in everyday
life should not be surprising. Psychology deals with complex systems in which multiple
co- occurring variables influence or are associated with behaviors. Disentangling these variables
and their effects is difficult. Psychological explanations tend to involve hedging, at least in part
due to the complexities of behavior. Madigan, Johnson, and Linton (1995) noted that writing
in psychology reveals the complexity and the discipline’s phenomena, hence their conclusions:
Hedge words implicitly recognize the uncertain flow of the ongoing stream of empirical
studies investigating complex phenomena. New findings can and do cause old conclusions to
be abandoned. Hedge words also convey an impression that theories are more tenuous and
less permanent than the data that generate them, an idea that has characterized empirical
disciplines since the time of Bacon. (Madigan et al., 1995, p. 428)
Such hedge words include “tend” or “suggest,” which imply tentativeness. Hedging also
occurs in phrases, such as “does not rule out” rather than “the results point to” (Madigan
et al., 1995, pp. 431–432).
Examples of Different Modes of Belief
Students coming into the research methods course may not have a good sense of the dif-
ferent ways that they hold knowledge or, as Charles Peirce might have expressed it, fix
their beliefs. To understand the strength of the scientific approach, students will benefit
from understanding other modes of knowing. Peirce included four ways of knowing:
tenacity, authority, the a priori method, and the scientific method (Peirce, 1877). These
ways of knowing are useful for introducing students to a new way of thinking about their
knowledge, at the beginning of a course.
Tenacity
Sometimes people simply adopt beliefs, according to Peirce (1877), then refuse to consider any
alternate idea, even in the face of contrary facts. Why might this obstinacy take place? Peirce
suggested that, “in many cases it may very well be that the pleasure he derives from his calm
faith overbalances any inconveniences resulting from its deceptive character” (¶ 23).
In discussing this way of believing, one can give students an example that represents the
limitations of tenacity. For instance, what do students (and the populace in general) know
about lemmings? The modal “fact” about lemmings is that they commit suicide en masse.