Chapter One- Thinking Critically

Research in Psychology is important because it is evidence that helps support the theories about behaviors, thought processes, habits, moods, responses, and expressions of people. If the research or the data does not support a theory than it will revised or simply rejected. Without research we would not have knowledge that we do today to make professional diagnoses and evaluations on patients. (Professionalism which we as a society have come to expect and depend upon.)



An example of how research is relevant to my life would be: Within the last year I have had two benign tumors removed. I had several tests and scans done before they could properly diagnosis me. The type of tumors that I had were extremely rare and they had to research through medical books in order to diagnosis me, surgically remove them, and test them for cancer/other diseases. Without research I may not be as healthy as I am today. This is just one simple example out of many as to how research is relevant to my life.


I learned various things in this chapter. I found in particular the research part to be fascinating because I always wondered how psychiatrists knew how to diagnosis patients correctly considering this subject seemed so subjective. Another thing I found to be interesting was the section on wording effects. I never realized how much emphasis people put on words until I read that section. I also learned about the correlations and illusory correlations. I never realized that people are more likely to recall or notice things when they believe a relationship exists.