Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Critiquing presentation of science in psychology - Coggle Diagram
Critiquing presentation of science in psychology
Persuasive toolkit
Being technical - use of jargon to illustrate a term as a way to impress rather than explain
Technical language, brains scans, specialised equipment, expertise the reader cannot unpack
Image of science (statistics etc) creates a sense of certainty even when the underlying evidence may be weak or misinterpreted
Does the article explain how the brain scan actually supports the claim, or is it technology to look convincing
Using the social - are social references or identities used to strengthen the message
The act of drawing on authority cues to make claims sound credible
-> Prestigious institutions
-> Expert identifies
-> Publication status
-> Large collaborative groups
These references encourage trust by association without evaluating evidence
Are you convinced by the people and institutions or the evidence?
Authoritative language - scientific writing with certain linguistic styles that signal authority, which are mimicked by the media
Technical vocab
Passive constructions
Historical continuity
Quantification
Nominalisation
Does the language inform or impress
Language - word choices
Rhetorical questions - are these used to guide the reader towards a view
Imply answers not seek them
In media, they are used to guide a reader to a preferred conclusion, suggest the claim is already agreed upon or create an illusion of shared understanding
They subtly encourage readers to accept a claim without evaluating the evidence by making the answer obvious, encouraging agreement through implication and creating conversational intimacy
Rule of three
Evidentialities / eventualities:
Words or phrases that suggest something is obvious, inevitable or already agreed upon
They subtly push readers towards accepting conclusions without evaluating the evidence
Common phrases - of course, clearly, naturally, obviously
Using these terms pre-frames a claim as something sensible or normal, making disagreement seem unreasonable or uninformed
‘Clearly’ and ‘obviously’
Opinion as fact:
Using firm language to explain a concept that can only be suggested to encourage feelings of authoritativeness
Declarative statements tend to be taken at face value
Flattery:
Being kind to the reader to encourage them to agree with them - increases alignment with the writer, increases trust, frames agreement as a sign of being competent, caring or smart
Pronouns:
Create solidarity, assign responsibility or blame, distance the writer from a claim
This shaping effect guides conclusions without presenting stronger evidence
Superlatives:
Indicate extremes - inflate the importance of findings or present small effects as major breakthroughs
Often distort psychological research, which can involve small effects, complex interactions and contextual
Superlatives give false impressions of certainty or impact, especially if the underlying study is modest
Emotional language:
Invoking feelings to overcome objective presentation of information
Emotional framing can make findings seem more urgent or alarming, direct the reader’s attention to a particular moral stance, reduce critical distance by appealing to feelings over evidence
Social science of science
Science is not just about the evidence shown, but how it is communicated, presented and justified:
Much of the information we accept everyday is ‘black-box’ knowledge - claims which seem authoritative because they came from experts, and have been internalised without understanding the why
-> Once a claim becomes true, the supporting evidence no longer becomes important (dissenting evidence)
We tend to trust the information without unpacking methods, assumptions, or limitations behind it:
Media articles often rely on this effect to make claims seem more credible
Once a black box is created around a finding, it is hard to shift it from public consciousness
Both media and research articles are a form of persuasion designed to turn evidence into ‘fact’ and ultimately black box it
Discourse analysis (Beacco et al., 2002; Philo., 2007) - DA focuses on the specific words, phrases and rhetorical techniques used to influence how readers understand evidence
These linguistic devices don’t just describe evidence, they actively shape how we interpret it, ideally without us noticing
Media articles use predictable linguistic patterns to make claims seem stronger, clearer, more emotional or more convincing than the evidence actually allows
Theory and evidence presentation
Theory - Constructs - hard to define, have to be operationalised well
Stages - if it is a developmental trajectory, have they operationalised the stages and are the stages truly distinct
Statistics - can assume there is a difference present
Association - synthetic v analytic truths (tautology)
Use of persuasive strategies -
Influence of funding, science frameworks and the role of labs - how factors around the research influence the science
Technicality - being technical was used as a persuasive strategy in scientific papers e.g. including brain scans over bar charts encouraged readers to think the brain paper was more credible
Social - using more researchers to make the results seem more credible as more researchers have been involved; peer review can also be used to add credibility
-> Researcher and publication bias - objectifies the research to use the social, especially when the peer review is completely detached from the original publishing researchers
Language - objective and technical language, use of jargon makes it appear as ‘science’ and using phrases such as ‘known for years’ to make it appear that the research is more persuasive
Does the research question match the literature, does it match the methods, does it match the data analysis and are the conclusions justified
Refutation - undermines previous theories, and if it has a stronger method it can refute the theories
Falsification - theories can be falsified if new evidence emerges to say that it can be proved wrong
-> In reality - one paper cannot falsify or refute a theory
Replication - has it been replicated? Does it replicate something else?
Additive - it adds to the literature by changing some elements
Triangulation - using mixed methods to improve reliability
-> Although accumulative evidence helps to support evidence, it is rare for any paper to be considered a truth
Extra critical -
Questioning the notion of scientific truth - observation, experimentation, discovery and measurement used to evidence truth
-> Does science create facts or discover it?
Disciplines -
Things need to be measurable - sometimes, things are not measurable, and they have to be effectively operationalised to help this (quality of measurement tool determines this)
False dichotomies
Hierarchies of disciplines - answering questions in a range of ways based on methods gives an informed set of information; hierarchy favours more scientific and biological evidence
Thinking outside the box:
Does it harm?
What is the aim - control or causality