by David Robson
16 Proctor, R. (2011), Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, p. 292.
17 See the following paper for a thorough discussion of this effect: Schwarz, N. Sanna, L.J., Skurnik, I. and Yoon, C. (2007), ‘Metacognitive Experiences and the Intricacies of Setting People Straight: Implications for Debiasing and Public Information Campaigns’, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 127?61. See also Pluviano, S., Watt, C. and Della Sala, S. (2017), ‘Misinformation Lingers in Memory: Failure of Three Pro-Vaccination Strategies’, PLOS One, 12(7), e0181640.
18 Glum, J. (11 November 2017), ‘Some Republicans Still Think Obama Was Born in Kenya as Trump Resurrects Birther Conspiracy Theory’, Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/trump-birther-obama-poll-republicans-kenya-744195.
19 Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K., Seifert, C. M., Schwarz, N. and Cook, J. (2012). ‘Misinformation and its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing’. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(3), 106–131.
20 Cook, J. and Lewandowsky, S. (2011), The Debunking Handbook. Available at https://skepticalscience.com/docs/Debunking_Handbook.pdf.
21 NHS Choices, ‘10 Myths about the Flu and Flu Vaccine’, https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/winterhealth/Pages/Flu-myths.aspx.
22 Smith, I.M. and MacDonald, N.E. (2017), ‘Countering Evidence Denial and the Promotion of Pseudoscience in Autism Spectrum Disorder’, Autism Research, 10(8), 1334?7.
23 Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J.A., Koehler, D.J., et al. (2016), ‘Is the Cognitive Reflection Test a Measure of Both Reflection and Intuition?’ Behavior Research Methods, 48(1), 341?8.
24 Pennycook, G. (2014), ‘Evidence That Analytic Cognitive Style Influences Religious Belief: Comment on Razmyar and Reeve (2013)’, Intelligence, 43, 21?6.
25 Much of this work on the Cognitive Reflection Test has been summarised in the following review paper: Pennycook, G., Fugelsang, J.A. and Koehler, D.J. (2015), ‘Everyday Consequences of Analytic Thinking’, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(6), 425?32.
26 Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J.A., Barr, N., Koehler, D.J. and Fugelsang, J.A. (2015), ‘On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit’, Judgment and Decision Making, 10(6), 549?63.
27 Pennycook, G. and Rand, D.G. (2018), ‘Lazy, Not Biased: Susceptibility to Partisan Fake News Is Better Explained by Lack of Reasoning than By Motivated Reasoning’, Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.011. See also Pennycook, G. and Rand, D.G. (2017), ‘Who Falls for Fake News? The Roles of Bullshit Receptivity, Overclaiming, Familiarity, and Analytic Thinking’, unpublished paper, https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3023545.
28 Swami, V., Voracek, M., Stieger, S., Tran, U.S. and Furnham, A. (2014), ‘Analytic Thinking Reduces Belief in Conspiracy Theories’, Cognition, 133(3), 572?85. This method of priming analytic thought can also reduce religious beliefs and paranormal thinking: Gervais, W.M. and Norenzayan, A. (2012), ‘Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief’, Science, 336(6080), 493?6.
29 Long before the modern form of the Cognitive Reflection Test was invented, psychologists had noticed that it may be possible to prime people to be more critical of the information they receive. In 1987, participants were given deceptively simple trivia questions, with a tempting misleading answer. The process cured their over-confidence on a subsequent test, helping them to calibrate their confidence to their actual knowledge. Arkes, H.R., Christensen, C., Lai, C. and Blumer, C. (1987), ‘Two Methods of Reducing Overconfidence’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 39(1), 133?44.
30 Fitzgerald, C.J. and Lueke, A.K. (2017), ‘Mindfulness Increases Analytical Thought and Decreases Just World Beliefs’, Current Research in Social Psychology, 24(8), 80?5.
31 Robinson himself admitted that the names were unverified. Hebert, H.J. (1 May 1998), ‘Odd Names Added to Greenhouse Plea’, Associated Press: https://apnews.com/aec8beea85d7fe76fc9cc77b8392d79e.
32 Cook, J., Lewandowsky, S. and Ecker, U.K. (2017), ‘Neutralizing Misinformation through Inoculation: Exposing Misleading Argumentation Techniques Reduces Their Influence’, PLOS One, 12(5), e0175799.
33 For further evidence, see Roozenbeek, J. and Van der Linden, S. (2018), ‘The Fake News Game: Actively Inoculating against the Risk of Misinformation’, Journal of Risk Research. DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2018.1443491.
34 McLaughlin, A.C. and McGill, A.E. (2017), ‘Explicitly Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in a History Course’, Science and Education, 26(1?2), 93?105. For a further discussion of the benefits of inoculation in education, see Schmaltz, R. and Lilienfeld, S.O. (2014), ‘Hauntings, Homeopathy, and the Hopkinsville Goblins: Using Pseudoscience to Teach Scientific Thinking’, Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 336.
35 Rowe, M.P., Gillespie, B.M., Harris, K.R., Koether, S.D., Shannon, L.J.Y. and Rose, L.A. (2015), ‘Redesigning a General Education Science Course to Promote Critical Thinking’, CBE-Life Sciences Education, 14(3), ar30.
36 See, for instance, Butler, H.A. (2012), ‘Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment Predicts Real-World Outcomes of Critical Thinking’, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26(5), 721–9. Butler, H.A., Pentoney, C. and Bong, M.P. (2017), ‘Predicting Real-World Outcomes: Critical Thinking Ability Is a Better Predictor of Life Decisions than Intelligence’, Thinking Skills and Creativity, 25, 38?46.
37 See, for instance, Arum, R. and Roksa, J. (2011), Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
38 ‘Editorial: Louisiana’s Latest Assault on Darwin’, New York Times (21 June 2008), https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/opinion/21sat4.html.
39 Kahan, D.M. (2016), ‘The Politically Motivated Reasoning Paradigm, Part 1: What Politically Motivated Reasoning Is and How to Measure It’, in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource, doi: 10.1002/9781118900772.
40 Hope, C. (8 June 2015), ‘Campaigning Against GM Crops Is ‘‘Morally Unacceptable’’, Says Former Greenpeace Chief’, Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/crops/11661016/Campaigning-against-GM-crops-is-morally-unacceptable-says-former-Greenpeace-chief.html.
41 Shermer, M. (2007), Why People Believe Weird Things, London: Souvenir Press, pp. 13?15. (Originally published 1997.)
42 You can read one of these exchanges on the Skeptic website: https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/05-05-03/.
43 You can find the Skepticism 101 syllabus, including a reading list, at the following website: https://www.skeptic.com/downloads/Skepticism101-How-to-Think-Like-a-Scientist.pdf.
44 For more information, see Shermer, M. (2012), The Believing Brain, London: Robinson, pp. 251–8. If you are looking for a course in inoculation, I’d thoroughly recommend reading Shermer’s work.
Chapter 7
1 Feynman, R. (1985), Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character, New York: W. W. Norton.
2 The following article, an interview with one of Feynman’s former students, offers this interpretation: Wai, J. (2011), ‘A Polymath Physicist on Richard Feynman’s “Low” IQ and Finding another Einstein’, Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201112/polymath-physicist-richard-feynmans-low-iq-and-finding-another.
3 Gleick, J. (1992), Genius: Richard Feynman and Modern Physics (Kindle Edition), pp. 30?5.
4 Gleick, J. (17 February 1988), ‘Richard Feynman Dead at 69: Leading Theoretical Physicist’, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/17/obituaries/richard-feynman-dead-at-69-leading-theoretical-physicist.html?pagewanted=all.
5 The Nobel Prize in Physics 1965: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/.
6 Kac, M. (1987), Enigmas of Chance: An Autobiography, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, p. xxv.
7 Gleick, ‘Richard Feynman Dead at 69’.
8 Feynman, R.P. (1999), The Pleasure of Finding Things
Out, New York: Perseus Books, p. 3.
9 Feynman, R.P. (2006), Don’t You Have Time to Think, ed. Feynman, M., London: Penguin, p. 414.
10 Darwin, C. (2016), Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (Vol. 1), Krill Press via PublishDrive. Available online at: https://charles-darwin.classic-literature.co.uk/the-life-and-letters-of-charles-darwin-volume-i/ebook-page-42.asp.
11 Darwin, C. (1958), Selected Letters on Evolution and Natural Selection, ed. Darwin, F., New York: Dover Publications, p. 9.
12 Engel, S. (2011), ‘Children’s Need to Know: Curiosity in Schools’, Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 625–45.
13 Engel, S. (2015), The Hungry Mind, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 3.
14 Von Stumm, S., Hell, B. and Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2011), ‘The Hungry Mind: Intellectual Curiosity Is the Third Pillar of Academic Performance’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(6), 574?88.
15 Engel, ‘Children’s Need to Know’.
16 Gruber, M.J., Gelman, B.D. and Ranganath, C. (2014), ‘States of Curiosity Modulate Hippocampus-Dependent Learning via the Dopaminergic Circuit’, Neuron, 84(2), 486?96. A previous, slightly less detailed study had come to broadly the same conclusions: Kang, M.J., Hsu, M., Krajbich, I.M., Loewenstein, G., McClure, S.M., Wang, J.T.Y. and Camerer, C.F. (2009), ‘The Wick in the Candle of Learning: Epistemic Curiosity Activates Reward Circuitry and Enhances Memory’, Psychological Science, 20(8), 963?73.
17 Hardy III, J.H., Ness, A.M. and Mecca, J. (2017), ‘Outside the Box: Epistemic Curiosity as a Predictor of Creative Problem Solving and Creative Performance’, Personality and Individual Differences, 104, 230–7.
18 Leonard, N.H. and Harvey, M. (2007), ‘The Trait of Curiosity as a Predictor of Emotional Intelligence’, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37(8), 1914–29.
19 Sheldon, K.M., Jose, P.E., Kashdan, T.B. and Jarden, A. (2015), ‘Personality, Effective Goal-Striving, and Enhanced Well-Being: Comparing 10 Candidate Personality Strengths’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(4), 575–85.
20 Kashdan, T.B., Gallagher, M.W., Silvia, P.J., Winterstein, B.P., Breen, W.E., Terhar, D. and Steger, M.F. (2009), ‘The Curiosity and Exploration Inventory-II: Development, Factor Structure, and Psychometrics’. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(6), 987–98.
21 Krakovsky, M. (2007), ‘The Effort Effect’, Stanford Alumni magazine, https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=32124.
22 Trei, L. (2007), ‘New Study Yields Instructive Results on How Mindset Affects Learning’, Stanford News website, https://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/february7/dweck-020707.html.
23 Harvard Business Review staff (2014), ‘How Companies Can Profit From a “Growth Mindset” ’, Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2014/11/how-companies-can-profit-from-a-growth-mindset.
24 Along these lines, a recent study found that gifted students are particularly at risk of the fixed mindset: Esparza, J., Shumow, L. and Schmidt, J.A. (2014), ‘Growth Mindset of Gifted Seventh Grade Students in Science’, NCSSSMST Journal, 19(1), 6–13.
25 Dweck, C. (2012), Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential, London: Robinson, pp. 17?18, 234?9.
26 Mangels, J.A., Butterfield, B., Lamb, J., Good, C. and Dweck, C.S. (2006), ‘Why Do Beliefs about Intelligence Influence Learning Success? A Social Cognitive Neuroscience Model’, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1(2), 75?86.
27 Claro, S., Paunesku, D. and Dweck, C.S. (2016), ‘Growth Mindset Tempers the Effects of Poverty on Academic Achievement’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(31), 8664?8.
28 For evidence of the benefits of mindset, see the following meta-analysis, examining 113 studies: Burnette, J.L., O’Boyle, E.H., VanEpps, E.M., Pollack, J.M. and Finkel, E.J. (2013), ‘Mind-sets Matter: A Meta-Analytic Review of Implicit Theories and Self-regulation’, Psychological Bulletin, 139(3), 655?701.
29 Quoted in Roberts, R. and Kreuz, R. (2015), Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 26–7.
30 See, for example, Rustin, S. (10 May 2016), ‘New Test for “Growth Mindset”, the Theory That Anyone Who Tries Can Succeed’, Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/10/growth-mindset-research-uk-schools-sats.
31 Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., Orobio de Castro, B., Overbeek, G. and Bushman, B.J. (2014), ‘ “That’s Not Just Beautiful ? That’s Incredibly Beautiful!” The Adverse Impact of Inflated Praise on Children with Low Self-esteem’, Psychological Science, 25(3), 728?35.
32 Dweck, C. (2012), Mindset, London: Robinson, pp. 180?6, 234?9. See also Haimovitz, K. and Dweck, C.S. (2017), ‘The Origins of Children’s Growth and Fixed Mindsets: New Research and a New Proposal’, Child Development, 88(6), 1849–59.
33 Frank, R. (16 October 2013), ‘Billionare Sara Blakely Says Secret to Success Is Failure’, CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2013/10/16/billionaire-sara-blakely-says-secret-to-success-is-failure.html.
34 See, for instance, Paunesku, D., Walton, G.M., Romero, C., Smith, E.N., Yeager, D.S. and Dweck, C.S. (2015), ‘Mind-set Interventions Are a Scalable Treatment for Academic Underachievement’, Psychological Science, 26(6), 784?93. For further evidence of the power of interventions, see the following meta-analysis: Lazowski, R.A. and Hulleman, C.S. (2016), ‘Motivation Interventions in Education: A Meta-Analytic Review’, Review of Educational Research, 86(2), 602?40.
35 See, for instance, the following meta-analysis, which found a small but significant effect: Sisk, V.F., Burgoyne, A.P., Sun, J., Butler, J.L., Macnamara, B.N. (2018), ‘To What Extent and Under Which Circumstances Are Growth Mind-Sets Important to Academic Achievement? Two Meta-Analyses’, Psychological Science, in press, https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617739704. The exact interpretation of these results is still the matter of debate. Generally speaking, it would seem that the growth mindset is most important when students feel vulnerable/threatened – meaning that the interventions are most effective for children of poorer households, for instance. And while one-shot interventions do provide some long-term benefits, it seems clear that a more regular programme would be needed to maintain larger effects. See: Orosz, G., Péter-Szarka, S., Bőthe, B., Tóth-Király, I. and Berger, R. (2017), ‘How Not to Do a Mindset Intervention: Learning From a Mindset Intervention among Students with Good Grades’, Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 311. For an independent analysis, see the following blog on the British Psychological Society website: https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/03/23/this-cheap-brief-growth-mindset-intervention-shifted-struggling-students-onto-a-more-successful-trajectory/.
36 Feynman, R.P. and Feynman, Michelle (2006), Don’t You Have Time to Think?, London: Penguin.
37 This episode is described in greater detail in Feynman’s memoir, Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman.
38 Feynman and Feynman, Don’t You Have Time to Think, p. xxi.
39 Feynman, R. (1972), Nobel Lectures, Physics 1963?1970, Amsterdam: Elsevier. Retrieved online at https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html.
40 Kahan, D.M., Landrum, A., Carpenter, K., Helft, L. and Hall Jamieson, K. (2017), ‘Science Curiosity and Political Information Processing’, Political Psychology, 38(S1), 179?99.
41 Kahan, D. (2016), ‘Science Curiosity and Identity-Protective Cognition . . . A Glimpse at a Possible (Negative) Relationship’, Cultural Cognition Project blog, http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2016/2/25/science-curiosity-and-identity-protective-cognition-a-glimps.html.
42 Porter, T. and Schumann, K. (2017), ‘Intellectual Humility and Openness to the Opposing View’, Self and Identity, 17(2), 1–24. Igor Grossmann, incidentally, has come to similar conclusions in one of his most recent studies: Brienza, J.P., Kung, F.Y.H., Santos, H.C., Bobocel, D.R. and Grossmann, I. (2017), ‘Wisdom, Bias, and Balance: Toward a Process-Sensitive Measurement of Wisdom-Related Cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, advance online publication, http://dx.doi.org/10.10
37/pspp0000171.
43 Brienza, Kung, Santos, Bobocel and Grossmann, ‘Wisdom, Bias, and Balance’.
44 Feynman, R.P. (2015), The Quotable Feynman, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 283.
45 Morgan, E.S. (2003), Benjamin Franklin, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, p. 6.
46 Friend, T. (13 November 2017), ‘Getting On’, New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/why-ageism-never-gets-old/amp.
47 Friedman, T.L. (22 February 2014), ‘How to Get a Job at Google’, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html.
Chapter 8
1 Details of this story can be found in one of Stigler’s earliest works: Stevenson, H.W. and Stigler, J.W. (1992), The Learning Gap, New York: Summit Books, p. 16.
2 Waldow, F., Takayama, K. and Sung, Y.K. (2014), ‘Rethinking the Pattern of External Policy Referencing: Media Discourses Over the “Asian Tigers” ’ PISA Success in Australia, Germany and South Korea’, Comparative Education, 50(3), 302–21.
3 Baddeley, A.D. and Longman, D.J.A. (1978), ‘The Influence of Length and Frequency of Training Session on the Rate of Learning to Type’, Ergonomics, 21(8), 627–35.
4 Rohrer, D. (2012), ‘Interleaving Helps Students Distinguish Among Similar Concepts’, Educational Psychology Review, 24(3), 355?67.
5 See, for instance, Kornell, N., Hays, M.J. and Bjork, R.A. (2009), ‘Unsuccessful Retrieval Attempts Enhance Subsequent Learning’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35(4), 989. DeCaro, M.S. (2018), ‘Reverse the Routine: Problem Solving Before Instruction Improves Conceptual Knowledge in Undergraduate Physics’, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 52, 36–47. Clark, C.M. and Bjork, R.A. (2014), ‘When and Why Introducing Difficulties and Errors Can Enhance Instruction’, in Benassi, V.A., Overson, C.E. and Hakala, C.M. (eds), Applying Science of Learning in Education: Infusing Psychological Science into the Curriculum, Washington, DC: Society for the Teaching of Psychology, pp. 20?30.
6 See, for instance, Kapur, Manu (2010), ‘Productive Failure in Mathematical Problem Solving’, Instructional Science, 38(6), 523–50. And Overoye, A.L. and Storm, B.C. (2015), ‘Harnessing the Power of Uncertainty to Enhance Learning’, Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 1(2), 140.
